Opioid Prescriptions Surged Among New Moms in COVID Lockdown

New mothers who gave birth after March 2020 received “more potent and more frequent opioid prescriptions” within six months than those who had children before COVID-19 lockdowns, a new study found.

A team of five researchers published the study Monday in JAMA Network Open, examining the records of 460,371 privately insured mothers who gave birth to a single newborn from July 2018 to December 2020. It warns of a possible surge in opioid addictions among new moms who may have abused painkillers to numb unpleasant feelings during the lockdowns.

“This potential for misuse was compounded during COVID-19, as the isolation and stressors of the pandemic may have been associated with women misusing opioids as a coping mechanism,” the researchers wrote.

The study found that opioid fill rates were 2.8 percentage points higher from March to December 2020 — after officials nationwide issued stay-at-home orders — than during the previous three years.

The mean of daily morphine-equivalent prescription fills was 1.7 percentage points higher; the rate of opioid prescriptions filled for every 100 moms was 4.6 percentage points higher; and the prescription rate of schedule II opioids was 2.8 percentage points higher than pre-existing trends. (Read more from “Opioid Prescriptions Surged Among New Moms in COVID Lockdown” HERE)

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