'They Took My Kid': Rural Docs Help Moms Fight Addiction [medpagetoday.com]

Rafael Maravilla(PACEs Connection Staff) 11/23/191:44 PM

By Ashley Lyles, MedPage Today, November 19, 2019

Patient: I'd gotten pregnant again and I was using through my whole pregnancy, and I didn't receive prenatal care. He was born and he's fine and everything. The [Department of Social Services] let me bring him home. Then a week after I had him, I relapsed really, really bad. Then, I got really messed up and they took my kid.

Reporter: The opioid epidemic has taken a toll in rural areas, especially on pregnant women. Doctors and healthcare providers in rural North Carolina are on the front lines, trying to improve outcomes for mothers and babies.

Amy Marietta, MD, MPH: We have certainly seen the effects of the opioid epidemic in rural western North Carolina. I think one of the populations that is starting to get a little bit more attention that we are starting to more appropriately treat for opioid use disorder are pregnant and postpartum women.

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Karen ClemmerMember

From the article: As anyone who's ever been pregnant knows, you have to go to the doctor a lot. If you are someone with a limited income, maybe limited money for gas or unreliable transportation, the ability to come one place and get money through WIC for your food so you can eat enough and have a healthy pregnancy, to see your behavioral health clinician if you're struggling with postpartum depression or a mood disorder. To see an addiction specialist and a doctor who can prescribe medications to help you with your opioid use disorder and to get transportation vouchers so you can get back and forth from your home to those visits. To have that all located in one place, it's really special to be part of a team like that, and it really improves access to care for patients and health outcomes.

11/29/1911:43 AM

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