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Women are more likely than men to be prescribed opioid pain relievers (OPRs), to use them chronically, and to receive prescriptions for higher OPR doses. According to a recent CDC report, rates of death from overdoses of prescription OPRs have risen faster in women than in men during the last decade, although the death rate in men remains higher. Deaths from OPRs in women increased fivefold from 1999 to 2010. Since 2007, more women have died from drug overdoses than from motor vehicle accidents — and in 2010, four times as many women died from overdoses as from homicide.
The authors note that, given the risk for neonatal abstinence syndrome and the potential fetal effects of OPRs early during pregnancy, misuse of OPRs among women of reproduc…