Drug Abuse During Pregnancy: Policy Options

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Drug Abuse During Pregnancy: Policy Options

Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The consequences of drug use on the well-being of pregnant women and their unborn babies is a social problem, as experts in this sector are committed to promoting maternal and newborn health. One method of giving pregnant women financial support so they may receive rehabilitation treatments that reduce the risk of injury to their unborn children has been identified as funding detoxification programs.

Discussion

Pregnant women struggling with drug addiction may get help at a residential treatment center, where they can undergo specialized care without involving their children or other relatives in their recovery. Once their child is delivered, the clinics will provide the mothers with the necessary resources to continue living healthily outside rehabilitation. Evidence suggests that compared to women who do not get treatment for drug use disorder, those who do have a reduced risk of premature birth (Kotelchuck et al., 2017). Women in need of drug treatment during pregnancy have access to a wide range of resources, including:

Medication administration;
Psychotherapy;
Group counseling;
Dietary advice;
Yoga and mindfulness meditation.

Another policy option was voluntary sterilization programs to prevent future injury. Female sterilization is an irreversible method of contraception and involves blocking the oviduct. For some women, the decision to forego motherhood is so difficult that sterilization becomes a viable alternative. A female who chooses to have her uterus removed is in an exceptional situation. The choice to have children, to forego having children, or to take steps that would make future childbearing impossible may have far-reaching effects on a persons life. Doctors often deny womens requests to undergo voluntary sterilization.

For women with substance use disorder, the possibility of being denied sterilization is even higher because of the assumption that they may not be of sound mind to make such requests. In general, future regret is doctors first argument against allowing women to have elective sterilization (Lalonde, 2018). Given this obstacle, pregnant women with addiction problems can consider alternatives to voluntary sterilization, such as intrauterine contraceptive devices (ICD). This is a tiny, T-shaped contraception device implanted into the womb to avert pregnancy. According to multiple findings, ICD implantation is an effective and safe contraceptive treatment with a high continuance rate, low ejection, and risk of complications (Vilvapriya & Veeraragavan, 2017; Sudha & Singh, 2017). The advantage of this method is that it is not permanent; hence women who have overcome addiction can still choose to give birth.

The final policy was the criminal prosecution of mothers who place their unborn children at risk of harm due to substance use. Some believe that criminal sanctions discourage drug usage during pregnancy. On the other hand, the clinical paradigm of addiction considers drug use disorders to be progressive illnesses. Reducing drug use during pregnancy is a priority in the therapeutic world, and this priority should be met through rehabilitation rather than punishment (Faherty et al., 2019).

Conclusion

Thus, health professionals are overwhelmingly opposed to policies to penalize drug abuse by pregnant women. Instead, rehabilitative approaches such as medication administration, psychotherapy, group counseling, and dietary advice are more effective (Keane, 2018). Nonetheless, heated discussions on whether or not drug abuse during pregnancy should be illegal due to the potential risks to the developing fetus or child persist.

References

Faherty, L. J., Kranz, A. M., Russell-Fritch, J., Patrick, S. W., Cantor, J., & Stein, B. D. (2019). Association of Punitive and Reporting State Policies Related to Substance Use in Pregnancy with Rates of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. JAMA network open, 2(11), e1914078. Web.

Keane, H. (2018). Facing addiction in America: The Surgeon Generals Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health Us Department of Health and Human Services, Office of The Surgeon General Washington, DC, USA: US Department of Health and Human Services, 382 pp. Web.

Kotelchuck, M., Cheng, E. R., Belanoff, C., Cabral, H. J., Babakhanlou-Chase, H., Derrington, T. M.,& & Bernstein, J. (2017). The prevalence and impact of substance use disorder and treatment on maternal obstetric experiences and birth outcomes among singleton deliveries in Massachusetts. Maternal and child health journal, 21(4), 893-902. Web.

Lalonde D. (2018). Regret, shame, and denials of womens voluntary sterilization. Bioethics, 32(5), 281288. Web.

Sudha, R., & Singh, N. (2017). A prospective study to evaluate safety, efficacy and expulsion rate of post-partum insertion of intrauterine contraceptive device in a tertiary care centre. International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 6(3), 814-819.

Vilvapriya, S., & Veeraragavan, K. (2017). Long term clinical outcome of intra caesarean intrauterine contraceptive device insertion. International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 6(5), 1894-1900.

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