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"Medically sound and appropriate." That is what Dr. Kapoor says when asked about giving Methadone to Anna Nicole when she was in the late stages of pregnancy. What can you say to people like this? Even Courtney Love got her ass off drugs when she realized she was pregnant. Anna Nicole had a choice..Dannilynn did not. How sorry can you feel for someone who'd take Methadone in her last months of pregnancy?
The answer here is....not very. I'm pro choice, but, that goes both ways. If you choose to bring a child into the world, you get your ass clean. If you think I'm wrong..tell me.
5 comments:
I think you're right thats sick theres no way cold turkey could be worse than living with yourself after you make your baby addicted to that shit
This is a very interesting post and actually sent me on a googling spree. I admit I am not well informed on this particular case of Anna Nicole Smith, but was more bent on finding out about Methadone and its use, esp during pregancy.
It does appear that Methadone is the drug of choice to detoxify opiate dependant pregnant women, and has been so for quite some time.
Methadone is a synthetic narcotic analogue which has a morphine like effect, only its withdrawl symptoms r much less severe and easier to manage than that of say, heroine. Hence its administered to pregnant women to keep them off illicit street drugs or other medically unsupervised agents, and to ultimately wean them off the hard stuff. So it seems, on the surface at least, that the doctor was actually following sound clinical guidelines. But like all narcotics / narcotic analogues, when taken concomittantly with other CNS depressant drugs, including alchohol, the effects might be compounded and lead to respiratory depression and even coma.
Here is a blurb I picked from the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health. The link is given below. The FDA website is also an authoratative storehouse of info on this subject.
"Methadone treatment during pregnancy offers overwhelming advantages compared with the less acceptable option of medical detoxification or the unacceptably dangerous option of leaving heroin-addicted women dependent on street drugs. General agreement exists that pregnancy offers a unique opportunity to bring women into medical, obstetric, and drug treatment. Methadone maintenance in the setting of comprehensive service provision during pregnancy reduces maternal morbidity and mortality and promotes fetal stability and growth. With an accumulated experience of over 25 years, methadone maintenance has been shown to be an invaluable and often an essential ingredient in bettering the health of women during pregnancy, in improving the outcomes of those pregnancies, and in offering opiate-addicted women a chance to improve both their lives and the lives of their families."
Related Link
Here is another quote from a detailed Methadone profile linked to from the FDA site, related to Methadone's use during pregancy. Its a vast text document and will take some time to pursue, lol!
"Teratogenic Effects – Pregnancy Category C. There are no controlled studies of methadone use in pregnant women that can be used to establish safety. However, an expert review of published data on experiences with methadone use during pregnancy by the Teratogen Information System (TERIS) concluded that maternal use of methadone during pregnancy as part of a supervised, therapeutic regimen is unlikely to pose a substantial teratogenic risk (quantity and quality of data assessed as “limited to fair”)."
FDA Link
This is a more simply written account on Methadone use during pregnancy from the SIMS site.
(Adapted from the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 26:155-161, 1994) --- "According to Margaret A.E. Jarvis, M.D., and Sidney H. Schnoll, M.D., Ph.D., from the Medical College of Virginia, the risks to mother and fetus in methadone maintenance are far fewer than those associated with cycles of sudden withdrawal and reintoxication by street drugs, as well as the related lifestyle dangers including high-risk HIV related behaviors. Women denied or removed from methadone maintenance during pregnancy are highly likely to relapse into heroin use."
Related Link
Like most other people, I have no idea as to what exactly went wrong in Anna's case, cud be a multiplicity of factors leading to her sad demise. But Methadone and its use during pregnancy doesn't appear to be the smoking gun when considered in general terms.
LeetLe_John
PS - Hey pB, did I clutter up yr blog again? :p
The research proves the opiod dependence happens during pregnancy. Just because a person is on methadone doesnt mean they abused any heroin. All opiods are addictive and paitents can gain acceptance to a methadone clinic for pain medicine dependence just a much as heroin abuse. So you have an injury are on pain pills , oops you got pregnaunt, what now you abort because you have injury? Lots of folks have lots of resons for being on methadone, and pregnancy can be completed with a happy, healthy, baby from any methadone paitent as long as they follow the program from the clinic where the methadone is recieved. All methadone pregnant mothers are not like Anna Nicole! Even if they are the worst drug addict, they are doing the best thing imaginable which is seeking treatment! Much better to be born to a methadone addicted mother than a illict drug user, doing god knows what.
Your comments are very judgemental. You are stereotyping pregnant women on methadone based on one bad apple.
As a methadone patient who is receiving treatment not from being some street heroin user you see on TV, but because I was involved in an accident that left me in physical therapy and on pain medicine which I got dependent on. I entered treatment because it is the best way for me to detox slowly without relapsing.
While in treatment my husband and I found out that I have become pregnant not because we were being careless, we did use birth control. After talking with my counselor and Doctor at my treatment center and my Ob-Gyn, they all agreed that in an unexpected pregnancy while taking methadone the best thing for myself and my unborn child is to continue to take my medicine. Not all babies even experience withdraw symptoms and the ones that do are closely monitored and detoxed with no proof of long term problems and little discomfort.
So in summary who are you to judge based on what you have heard and seen in the tabloids maybe if you would do some research and actually look into yourself and not make comments based on hyped up media coverage of one bad apple, you would realize your comments are ignorant.
HI,
Great information!!! It is really interesting to read your article.
By doing Alcohol Detox, alcohol addicts will understand how to overcome the desire to drink alcohol again. And with the desire to recover, usually will accelerate recovery for the patient’s own self. In addition, Opiate Detox can also be done to remove toxins from the body, this can be done if the patient has both alcohol and drugs dependence.
Thanks,
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