Addiction in the family
The cases presented here demonstrate the use of buprenorphine opioid agonist therapy (OAT) for pregnant women with opioid use disorder (OUD), which is now recognized as a safe and effective first-line treatment.
Abstract
very day, Indigenous people in Canada leave their communities to access health care services 1 —the norm for all people living outside of large urban centres, owing to hospital closures and a centralizing of services all across Canada. For Indigenous peoples—especially those who live on reserves—the Government of Canada purposefully shifted health care services outside of their communities as a means of advancing a colonial assimilatory project. 2-5 Today, Health Canada’s evacuation policy continues to be applied to all pregnant people who live on reserves and it requires that they be medically evacuated to urban centres between 36 and 38 weeks’ gestation to await labour and delivery. The following is an account of 2 from of The rooming-in for infants born to opioid-dependent mothers at elsewhere, and rooming-in and skin-to-skin contact between baby and parent is supported as a standard of care for opioid-dependent babies. 6-8 The cases presented here demonstrate the use of buprenorphine opioid agonist therapy (OAT) for pregnant women with opioid use disorder (OUD), which is now recognized as a safe and effective first-line treatment. 9 The practical benefits of buprenorphine OAT specifically for pregnant Indigenous women who live in remote areas have described extensively elsewhere. 10-13