Health evaluation and research outcomes network (HERON): Substance use in pregnancy stream

NDARC Staff

Lucy Burns and Richard Mattick

Other Investigators

Bruce Armstrong, Richard Taylor, Christine Roberts, Anne Cricker and Judy Simpson (University of Sydney); Louisa Jorm (NSW Health); Dianne O’Connell (Cancer Council of NSW); Elizabeth Sullivan (National Perinatal Statistics Unit, UNSW); and Anthony Zwi (School of Public Health and Community Medicine UNSW).

Rationale

Over 250,000 women give birth in Australia each year and pregnancy is the single most important reason for admission to hospital, accounting for the highest number of occupied bed days8. Of these women, 83,000 have epidural analgesia, 42,000 have caesarean sections and 30,000 have instrumental births8. Some 50,000 mothers will be separated from their babies who require nursery care and 6,500 infants will have prolonged admissions to Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU). Despite the substantial health care costs associated with maternal and infant health, there has been little research in Australia about how these services might best be provided. There is a wealth of information about best practice from clinical trials and systematic reviews through the Cochrane Collaboration but it is not clear how these findings translate into population based service provision in Australia. Population health data sets will be used to explore issues of clinical and policy significance to guide health policy and service provision.

Aims

To assess the magnitude and outcomes of substance use in pregnancy.

Design and Method

The overall aim of HERON is to use population health datasets to explore issues of clinical or policy significance to guide health policy and service provision. In the perinatal stream of this project HERON will provide information for service planning for pregnant drug users. Using retrospective and prospective methods the maternal and neonatal outcomes of babies born to substance-dependent women will be explored. Included will be the relative outcomes for pregnant women receiving methadone and other pharmacotherapies for opioid dependence. The project will link the Methadone Database with the Midwives Data collection and other relevant databases.

Benefits

Output

Burns, L., & Mattick, R. P. (2007). Using population data to examine the prevalence and correlates of neonatal abstinence syndrome. Drug & Alcohol Review, 26(5), 487-492.

Burns, L., Mattick, R. P., & Cooke, M. (2006a). Use of record linkage to examine alcohol use in pregnancy. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 30(4), 642-648.

Burns, L., Mattick, R. P., & Cooke, M. (2006b). The use of record linkage to examine illicit drug use in pregnancy. Addiction, 101(6), 873-882.

Burns, L., Mattick, R. P., Lim, K., & Wallace, C. (2007). Methadone in pregnancy: treatment retention and neonatal outcomes. Addiction, 102(2), 264-270.

Burns, L., Mattick, R. P., & Wallace, C. (2008). Smoking patterns and outcomes in a population of pregnant women with other substance use disorders. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 10(6), 969-974.

Wallace, C., Burns, L., Gilmour, S., & Hutchinson, D. (2007). Substance use, psychological distress and violence among pregnant and breastfeeding Australian women. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 31(1), 51-56.

Funding

NHMRC Capacity Building Grants in Population Health Research