Facts on Opioids and Pregnancy from a Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Attorney Tennessee Trusts

Opioid use is dangerous during pregnancy.

As a Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome attorney Tennessee trusts, I want to give you the facts about opioids and pregnancy.  A child in the womb can become addicted to opioids if its mother uses them while pregnant.

This means that the child will suffer agonizing and painful withdrawal during the first days and weeks of its life as it detoxes from the drugs it has become dependent on. Infant dependency can also occur if a mother takes opioids while breastfeeding her child. But, the harm done by opioids doesn’t stop after the withdrawal is complete.

 

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) occurs in newborns who were exposed to addictive opiate drugs while in the womb. When the child is born and he or she is diagnosed with NAS, they are forced to endure a painful start to life, including:

  • Crying excessively
  • Shaking or trembling
  • Sweating
  • Vomiting
  • Seizures
  • Slow weight gain
  • Blotchy skin
  • Arching of his back
  • Refusing to feed
  • And more

Long-term symptoms of NAS include:

  • Birth defects
  • Respiratory complications
  • Seizures
  • Chronic stress
  • Behavioral and development problems
  • Risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)
  • Hearing disabilities
  • Language delays
  • Impaired motor skills
  • Psychiatric illness
  • And more

Even mothers fighting their addiction are in danger of their child developing NAS. Methadone, a drug used to help wean people off of opioid dependency, is a major culprit of NAS.

This is why it’s so important to find a Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome attorney Tennessee trusts.

Major opioid manufacturers allegedly led doctors and patients to believe that opioids were safe. They’re not.

Given the risks of NAS, why would a woman who is pregnant take opioids? The answer is that twenty years ago, we didn’t know what we know now. Opioids were thought to be non-addictive and without serious medical side effects. This means that many mothers took opioids prescribed by their doctor to manage their legitimate pain while pregnant, under the impression that the drugs were safe.

The truth is that opioids harbor a great risk of addiction and can have disastrous consequences on the children born to mothers using them, such as NAS.

In fact, in 2007, three executives from Purdue Pharma were charged with misbranding its popular drug OxyContin and downplaying the possibility of addiction. They plead guilty and the company settled with the U.S. government for $635 million.

A good medical malpractice lawyer Memphis, TN trusts, like the attorneys at Darrell Castle & Associates, will fight for patients and their families to get compensation.

The Facts You Need to Know:

  • The number of babies born in the United States addicted to opioids has tripled in the last fifteen years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • The treatment of neonatal opioid withdrawal in U.S. hospitals cost $1.5 billion in 2012 alone.
  • Prescription opioid use leads to heroin use.  Roughly 80% of heroin users first misused opioids.

Call Darrell Castle & Associates, PLLC for a Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome attorney Tennessee has trusted for their cases right away.

The horrendous alleged misrepresentation prominent opioid manufacturers committed when first marketing their drugs is one of the main reasons the opioid crisis as bad as it is today.  If you are the child of a parent who took opioids while pregnant with you, or if you are a parent who has an adopted child whose mother consumed opioids during pregnancy, we would like to help.

Call Darrell Castle & Associates, PLLC right away.  Our experienced team has been trusted in Memphis for over thirty years, and we are ready to help you get the justice and compensation you deserve.

Contact us online today or call 901-327-1212 to speak in person with opioid lawyers you can trust.