Rate of babies born addicted to opiates increased twice as fast in rural areas from 2004 to 2013

The rate of infants born addicted to opiates is increasing twice as fast in rural America as in urban areas, says a study published in JAMA Pediatrics. Researchers at the University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago found that "infants exposed in the womb to heroin and other addictive opioids grew more than sixfold in rural communities between 2004 and 2013, versus more than threefold in urban areas," Jeanne Whalen reports for The Wall Street Journal.

In 2004-13 "the rate of hospital deliveries complicated by the mother’s opioid use grew more than sixfold in rural areas, versus threefold in urban areas," Whalen writes. "Researchers looked at babies who were diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, a condition marked by painful withdrawal symptoms from narcotics, including tremors, high-pitched crying and seizures." 

Researchers found that instances of NAS increased from 1.2 per every 1,000 hospital births in rural areas in 2004 to 7.5 in 2013, Whalen writes. During the same time NAS births in urban areas increased from 1.4 to 4.8. Hospital deliveries complicated by the mother’s opioid use grew from 1.3 to 8.1 in rural areas and from 1.6 to 4.8 in urban areas.