September 30, 2019

Early findings from HPC investments focused on supporting mothers with opioid use disorder (OUD) and infants born opioid-exposed suggest the opportunity to reduce inpatient length of stay and the need for pharmacotherapy for these infants at the six hospitals implementing evidence-based models for addressing neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

May 09, 2018

In the midst of a national crisis, mothers addicted to drugs struggle to get off them — for their babies’ sake, and their own.

May 08, 2018

Tied to the University of North Carolina Medical Center, Horizons is a residential substance use disorder treatment program where mothers undergoing treatment can bring their children. The kids attend school or day care while mothers take classes and go to therapy sessions.

March 22, 2018

Cooley Dickinson Certified Nurse Midwife Amy Walker has helped launch a new program at the Northampton hospital for pregnant and postpartum women who are recovering from opioid use.

January 29, 2018

Many stop using drugs during pregnancy, yet find little help sustaining their recovery once the baby is born.

January 23, 2018

Area service providers say children exposed to opioids in utero are placing a significant strain on their agencies, according to locally surveyed data recently presented at an Early Childhood Mental Health Roundtable.

October 31, 2017

A recent anonymous $3 million donation to help pregnant women and their babies fight addiction highlights the challenges, and costs, of caring for this population. Mothers and their newborns face specific hurdles when it comes to addiction, and hospitals and care centers have struggled to adapt to meet those needs. Click the link to listen to the New Hampshire Public Radio conversation. 

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GUESTS:

• Dr. Alison Holmes - Pediatrician at the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, where she is working on a study on babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). 

• Michele Merritt - Senior Vice President at New Futures, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving healthcare policy in New Hampshire. 

• Michelle Spurling - A new mother who is in recovery from an opioid addiction with plans to be a recovery coach. She was a resident at Hope on Haven Hill during her pregnancy. 

• Courtney Gray Tanner - Executive Director at Hope on Haven Hill, a substance use treatment organization for homeless, pregnant, and newly parenting mothers in recovery. 

October 07, 2017

The sprawling drug crisis, which public health officials have described as the worst in American history, has touched nearly every part of society. But the burden has perhaps fallen hardest on children, creating a new generation of foster youth and placing extraordinary strain on the child welfare system.

July 13, 2017

From 2003 to 2012, the last year for which statistics are available, the number of babies born dependent on drugs grew nearly fivefold in the United States. Opioids are the main culprit, and states like Kentucky are particularly hard-hit: 15 of every 1,000 infants here are born dependent on opioids.

Babies with the worst withdrawal symptoms are routinely separated from their mothers and whisked by ambulance, at great expense, to hospitals hours away, filling up beds intended for newborns who have even more serious problems, like heart defects.