Neonatal Outcomes of Infants Born to Pregnant Women With Substance Use Disorders: A Multilevel Analysis of Linked Data

OBJECTIVE This study examines the associations of substance use disorders in pregnancy with a set of neonatal outcomes. METHODS This is a quantitative retrospective study. Three linked datasets of a 10-year period (2007-2016) from New South Wales, Australia, were examined. Pregnant women were identified positive for substance use disorders when at least one hospital admission during pregnancy or delivery had opioid-, or cannabis-, or stimulant-, or alcohol- or two or more of the four substance groups- related ICD-10-AM diagnostic code. As there was a hierarchical structure in the dataset, the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) was estimated using multilevel logistic regression. FINDINGS Of the 622,640 birth records, 1677 (0.27%) women had opioid-related, 1857 (0.30%) had cannabis-related, 552 (0.09%) had stimulant-related, 595 (0.10%) had alcohol-related and 591 (0.09%) had polysubstance-related ICD-10-AM diagnostic codes. There were significant relationships between opioid use in pregnancy and neonatal health outcomes including preterm birth (AOR 3.2; 95% CI 2.8, 3.7) and admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) (AOR 10.0; 95% CI 8.8, 11.3). Substance use disorders due to cannabis, stimulants, alcohol or polysubstance were significantly associated with preterm birth, low birthweight, low APGAR score and admission to NICU. Also, alcohol and polysubstance use disorders in pregnancy were found to be significantly associated with stillbirth. CONCLUSION Results demonstrate that substance use disorders in pregnancy are associated with an increased risk of adverse neonatal outcomes. Early identification of substance use disorders through screening and adherence to pharmacotherapy and other psychosocial interventions could improve neonatal outcomes.