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Maternal opioid use disorder (OUD) is associated with excess risk for perinatal and maternal mortality; however, less is known about postneonatal outcomes. In this study, researchers analyzed Tennessee Medicaid data from 390,000 infants born from 2007 through 2018. Almost 15,000 infants served as the “exposed” cohort, which was defined by history of maternal opioid use disorder, prescription use for maternal OUD, or diagnosis of neonatal withdrawal syndrome.
The primary outcome — infant death from day 29 through day 365 of life — occurred in 0.34% of the study population overall. Infants exposed to maternal OUD or diagnosed with neonatal withdrawal syndrome had significantly higher postneontatal mortality than unexposed infants (≈9.0 vs. 3.5…