Princess Health and Half again as many Kentucky newborns were hospitalized for drug dependency last year as the year before.Princessiccia

Princess Health and Half again as many Kentucky newborns were hospitalized for drug dependency last year as the year before.Princessiccia

drug abuse drug treatment drug use drugs hospitals infant health narcotics neonatal care pain

Gusty 07:59 Add Comment

Mother Samantha Adams and her newborn Leopoldo Bautista,
10 days old, spend quality time inside the Louisville Norton
Healthcare child care center for children experiencing drug
withdrawal. (Photo by Alton Strupp, The Courier-Journal)

Increasing drug abuse drove up hospitalizations of drug-dependent newborns in Kentucky by 48 percent last year, to 1,409 from 955 in 2013. "The latest numbers represent a 50-fold increase from only 28 hospitalizations in 2000," reports Laura Ungar of The Courier-Journal.

"The seemingly never-ending increase every year is so frustrating to see," Van Ingram, executive director of the state Office of Drug Control Policy, told Ungar. "It's a horrible thing to spend the first days of your life in agony."

"These infants are born into suffering," Ungar writes. "They cry piercingly and often. They suffer vomiting, diarrhea, feeding difficulties, low-grade fevers, seizures � and even respiratory distress if they're born prematurely."

Drug-dependent newborns are becoming more common nationwide, Ungar notes, but "Vanderbilt University researchers publishing in the Journal of Perinatology [a subspecialty of obstetrics concerned with the care of the fetus and complicated, high-risk pregnancies] say rates are highest in a region encompassing Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky."

While the increase is blamed mostly on illegal drug use, the Vanderbilt study found that 28 percent of pregnant Medicaid recipients in Tennessee filled at least one painkiller prescription, Ungar writes: "Legitimate use not only raises the risk of having a drug-dependent baby, it can sometimes lead to abuse and addiction."

While Medicaid now pays for behavioral-health and substance-abuse treatment, "Drug treatment for pregnant women is sorely lacking," Ungar reports. In Kentucky, only 71 of the 286 treatment facilities listed by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration treat pregnant women. 

Princess Health and Princess Health andAnthem gives hospital group grant to improve perinatal care, including discouraging early, medically unnecessary deliveries.Princessiccia

Princess Health and Princess Health andAnthem gives hospital group grant to improve perinatal care, including discouraging early, medically unnecessary deliveries.Princessiccia

Caesarean section health care costs health insurance hospitals infant mortality neonatal care obstetrics perinatal care philanthropy premature birth

Gusty 11:24 Add Comment

The foundation of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has awarded nearly $259,000 to an arm of the Kentucky Hospital Association to improve perinatal care and outcomes for mothers and their babies by discouraging early, medically unnecessary deliveries and encouraging breastfeeding.

Perinatal care, provided in the time around childbirth, is critical to ensure the good health of newborns, Anthem notes in a news release, pointing out that Kentucky's infant mortality rate is 6.6 deaths per 1,000 births, while the national rate is 6.1, and the state's rate of premature births, almost 14 percent, is well above the 9.6 percent goal set by the March of Dimes.

"The closer the baby is to full term, the better; but sometimes babies are born before they fully develop, weighing only a few pounds," the release notes. "When this occurs, long stays in the hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are necessary as these babies fight health complications while learning to breathe on their own without the use of a ventilator."

NICU stays are usually expensive. In 2012, Kentucky hospitals charged about $400 million for such treatment.

The hospital association says it has been working to reduce early, elective deliveries, with the Anthem foundation's help, and the latest grant is designed to build on that work. It says the grant to its subsidiary, the Kentucky Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, will also promote breastfeeding, reducing blood infections in the hospital, and reducing complications related to inducing labor, including Cesarean sections.

"KIPSQ will work with all Kentucky hospitals that deliver babies to assure the best care during delivery and the best outcomes for mothers and babies," the KHA release says. "KIPSQ will collect data to measure progress and provide resources, tools and technical assistance in quality improvement techniques to reduce prematurity, unnecessary Cesareans and improve the long-term health of newborns.

KHA says 76 of Kentucky�s 131 hospitals are members of KIPSQ, which is expanding its membership to include long-term care facilities and physicians' practices. "The Anthem grant will improve the delivery of perinatal health care to all of the state�s birthing/neonatal hospitals, regardless of their participation in KIPSQ," the release says.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the trade name of Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. The Anthem Foundation Inc. is a private, non-profit foundation.

Princess Health and Beshear calls for action to improve state's health, but says only that 'It's time for us to begin looking seriously' at a smoking ban.Princessiccia

Princess Health and Beshear calls for action to improve state's health, but says only that 'It's time for us to begin looking seriously' at a smoking ban.Princessiccia

doctor shopping drug abuse governor legislation legislature neonatal care pain pain clinics pill mills prescription drug abuse smoking smoking ban smoking ordinances state government tobacco

Gusty 20:57 Add Comment

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

His priorities were education and tax reform, but Gov. Steve Beshear mentioned several health issues in his State of the Commonwealth speech tonight to a joint session of the General Assembly.

Beshear called for action to correct the state's "fundamental weaknesses," including "a population whose health ranks among the worst in the nation." Near the end of his speech, he said, "We need to continue improving the health of our people," but after about a minute of discussing tobacco and smoking he stopped short of endorsing a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace. (KET photo)

"It's time for us to begin looking seriously at doing this on a statewide level," he said to some applause, after noting that nearly half of Kentuckians live in jurisdictions where smoking is legally restricted, that the state has the highest or next-to-highest smoking rate overall and among teens and pregnant women, and that "Our smoking-related mortality rate is the worst in the nation. . . . Our addiction hurts productivity, jacks up health care costs and kills our people."

Beshear called for improving prenatal care and newborn screening, and for minor improvements in last year's bill to fight prescription drug abuse. He said the bill has caused a precipitous drop in abuse of prescription painkillers. "Kentucky at one time had the sixth highest rate in the nation, but . . . we improved 24 spots," he said. "Nearly half of the state's known pain management clinics have closed rather than submit to new rules that protect patients." He said use of the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system "has increased nearly seven-fold . . . and prescriptions for some of the most abused drugs have dropped up to 14 percent from a year ago."

However, the problem of babies becoming addicted to drugs in their addicted mothers' wombs has skyrocketed in the last decade or so, Beshear said: "In 2000, reports showed 29 babies in Kentucky born addicted to drugs. But in 2011, there were 730 babies � more than 25 times as many. And that figure is thought to be under-reported." He did not say how he wants to improve screening.

Beshear did not mention perhaps the biggest health policy question facing the commonwealth, whether to use federal subsidies to expand the Medicaid program to people in households earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty threshold. Now the program covers people in households earning up to 70 percent of the poverty line. The federal government would pay all the cost of the additional enrollees through 2016, when the state would start picking up part of the tab, up to 20 percent in 2020.

Some Republicans say the state can't afford the expansion, while some Democrats say it would be a good long-term investment in the state's health and economy. Beshear has said he wants to do it if the commonwealth can afford it, and expects to get cost estimates around the end of March -- about the time the legislature must adjourn.

For a PDF of the speech text, click here. For an audio recording, go here. For video from KET, here.

Princess Health and Poor, rural mothers-to-be have high levels of stress, and few resources to help them handle it, small-scale study concludes.Princessiccia

Princess Health and Poor, rural mothers-to-be have high levels of stress, and few resources to help them handle it, small-scale study concludes.Princessiccia

children mothers neonatal care pregnancy research rural health

Gusty 12:15 Add Comment

Low-income pregnant women in rural areas experience high levels of stress, but lack the appropriate means to manage their emotional well-being, according to a small-scale study at the University of Missouri. The authors suggest that rural doctors should link these women with resources to help manage stress, Medical Xpress reports.

"Many people think of rural life as being idyllic and peaceful, but in truth, there are a lot of health disparities for residents of rural communities," Mizzou nursing professor Tina Bloom told Medical Xpress. "Chronic, long-term stress is hard on pregnant women's health and on their babies' health. Stress is associated with increased risks for adverse health outcomes, such as low birth weights or pre-terms deliveries, and those outcomes can kill babies."

Researchers studied about 25 rural pregnant women. Through interviews, researchers discovered that financial problems were one of the biggest stressers for them. Financial stress was exacerbated by the women's lack of employment, reliable transportation and affordable housing. The women also said that small-town gossip, isolation and interdependence of their lives with extended family members also increased stress. Almost two out of three women showed symptoms of depression, and one in four displayed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. (Read more)