Program tackles expectant mothers' challenges

The Journal of Parkersburg published this editorial on April 1 regarding a program to tackle opioid use among expectant mothers in an attempt to end generational addictions:

It's no secret that opioid addiction is wreaking havoc across West Virginia, and with many women using drugs while pregnant, victims are younger than ever.

The Journal has covered the efforts to help infants affected by Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome - dealing with opioid withdrawal after birth. As disturbing and heartbreaking as NAS is, the consequences of maternal opioid abuse go beyond withdrawal. Families can be torn apart, more health issues can emerge and those children can grow up with a higher chance of becoming addicts.

An addicted mother-to-be can be in a variety of circumstances and often needs help on multiple fronts - not just through medication - to effectively conquer her addiction.

Maternal Comprehensive Opioid Addiction Treatment, a new program launched by WVU Medicine at the Harpers Ferry Family Medical Center, is aiming to tackle the obstacles expectant mothers face on the journey to getting clean, as reported Thursday in The Journal.

Run by Dr. David Baltierra and Giselle Perry, a licensed practical nurse and program therapist, the pilot program features medical treatment paired with group therapy on substance abuse, relapse prevention, pre-natal care, breast feeding, pain management and actual labor and delivery, according the Thursday's Journal article.

While much of this program focuses on the expectant mother and the subsequent health of her baby, an intervention like this offers a chance for an entire family to turn things around.

Roughly 12 percent of children in the United States live with a parent who is dependent on or abuses alcohol or other drugs, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway. How one grows up and if there is drug abuse in the family can greatly affect the chance of a child falling into addiction later, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

Addiction is often a generational affliction. So a mother deciding to get clean before her child is born is already improving that child's life by working to stop the cycle. The more tools a mother has to complete that goal the better.

"It's usually a family member that starts them on it," Baltierra said in Thursday's Journal article. "Then in one household, you'll have the mom, the baby, a parent, and even a grandparent and siblings addicted. You'll have easily three generations of addiction in the house living together. To deal with that, you can't just take care of the pregnant woman - you have to take care of the partner, the husband, the boyfriend the mother, the daughter."

To tackle that aspect of treatment, Harpers Ferry Family Medicine also launched family therapy programs to get everyone involved in the journey to get clean.

Growing up in the world of drug addiction is no easy road. But with family intervention like this, each child whose mother goes through the program is even less likely to experience the psychological, medical, economic and emotional hardships that come with being in a family affected by addiction - not to mention a lesser chance of becoming an addict later in life.

Those running this program clearly understand exactly how deep addiction can be and that in order to truly turn one's life around, many issues need to be effectively addressed. These multi-approach treatments tackling the widespread net of opioid addiction have the potential to not only save children, but to also save entire families.