Every twenty minutes, a baby is born to a mother addicted to opioids, according to TIME. About 80 percent of NAS cases in the U.S. are treated with morphine, and 20 percent are treated with methadone, which is less addictive than morphine and oxycodone.
Jonathan Davis, MD, vice chair of pediatrics at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, conducted a study comparing the use of methadone and morphine to treat babies born with NAS.
Among 116 babes born with NAS, those randomly assigned methadone for treatment left the hospital about three days earlier than babies treated with morphine, Dr. Davis found. Babies treated with methadone also stopped their medication routine roughly two days earlier.
“We hope people will look at these results and see the success and think, ‘that’s something we can also adopt’ so we don’t have hundreds of different approaches throughout the U.S. for treating these babies,” Dr. David told TIME.
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