Three recent studies published in Obstetrics & Gynecology revealed an excessive number of opioid painkillers are being prescribed to women following a Cesarian-section delivery. This fuels the risk of drug misuse, the researchers said. According to recent statistics, C-sections are the most common inpatient surgery in the U.S., with as many as 1.3 million operations being performs annually. However, the researchers noted the scarcity of data indicating how much medicine these patients really need.
To carry out the first and the largest study of its kind, researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston examined 720 C-section patients across six medical centers in the U.S. The research team found that 85 percent of patients filled an opioid prescription when the were discharged. The study revealed that women were prescribed about twice as many pills as they used, with each patient having 15 leftover doses on average. With the number of C-sections performed per year, this equated to about 20 million opioids that could be diverted or misused.
“We know that leftover medications are fueling our current opioid epidemic. Quantifying the amount of medication that a woman needs to control her pain following cesarean delivery and finding ways to reduce unnecessary prescribing can reduce unused opioid pills that end up in medicine cabinets at home,” corresponding author Brian Bateman told DailyMail.co.uk.
