Children of the Opioid Crisis

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/magazine/children-of-the-opioid-epidemic.html

This article profiles a number of women who are attempting to beat addiction for themselves and for their children. The article states that the young-adult population has been hardest hit, proportionately, with nearly 400,000 adults ages 18 to 25 suffering from addiction to prescription painkillers (the vast majority) or heroin. I did not realize that our age demographic makes up about a quarter of the total number of people battling opioid addiction in this country.  An interesting part of the article was the discussion of the standard of care for pregnant women addicted to opioids. Here is a key excerpt:


"The standard of care for a pregnant women addicted to opioids is medication-assisted treatment: a long-acting opioid substitute — traditionally methadone — that binds to the body’s opioid receptors to prevent withdrawal symptoms, usually without causing the euphoric sensations that commandeer the brain’s dopamine system into a relentless quest for more. Pregnant women on methadone or buprenorphine (a newer opioid-replacement drug) are more likely to bring their pregnancies to term, ensuring higher birth weights and better health for their babies...Women stabilized on medication-assisted treatment are in far less danger of relapsing, overdosing or contracting H.I.V., hepatitis C or other infections common among those who inject drugs. They experience less maternal stress, which has been shown to negatively impact the fetus’s epigenetics, or gene expression."


However, Methadone and buprenorphine are still opioids, and a fetus that is adapted to them is still at risk for withdrawal syndrome after birth. The author discusses how pregnant women addicted to opioids have not been a part of the attitude shift within this country of addiction being viewed as a mental illness. Instead, they are the subject of harsh punishments, due to the fact that their children are born with withdrawal syndrome. What do you guys think about mothers who are addicted during pregnancy being charged with child abuse? Do you think that these punishments will discourage pregnant women who are addicted from seeking help?