Drugs in pregnancy symposium
by Kelly Stone
L-R: Dr Andrea Gordon, Prof Dan Rurakand Dr Janna Morrison.
Supporting women to ensure the best health outcomes for themselves and their newborns was the aim of a recent health symposium at UniSA.
More than 90 people attended the symposium to hear the latest research into mental health and drug use during pregnancy at UniSA’s Sansom Institute for Health Research last month.
The symposium, ‘Drug use during pregnancy: drugs, nutrition and fetal physiology’, was attended by visiting Professor Dan Rurak from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Prof Rurak collaborates with UniSA’s Dr Janna Morrison in the area of fetal growth research. He was the symposium plenary speaker on the topic ‘Fetal growth and responses to maternal antidepressants’.
Symposium organiser Dr Andrea Gordon said delegates enjoyed hearing from Prof Rurak and other guest speakers including Monash University’s Dr Kelly Kenna and SA Women’s and Children’s Hospital’s Neil Hotham and Dr Michael Stark.
“The overall aim of the day was to look at mental health during pregnancy and how medication may help improve a woman’s health in certain circumstances, including depression and drug use,” Dr Gordon said.
“It’s about giving women more support and flexibility and ensuring the best health outcomes for both the woman and the newborn.”
Dr Gordon was a speaker at the symposium along with UniSA colleagues Dr Janna Morrison and Dr Libby Hotham.
Dr Gordon gave a session on buprenorphine and methadone during pregnancy. Both buprenorphine and methadone are opioid maintenance pharmacotherapies which are used to promote abstinence from illicit opioids such as heroin. Methadone has been the treatment of choice since the 1970s, and buprenorphine use is still restricted in Australia.
Dr Gordon’s research found reduced drug withdrawal symptoms in infants whose mothers were taking buprenorphine rather than methadone.
She said approximately 75 women per year in South Australia are on opioid maintenance pharmacotherapies to abstain from heroin use during pregnancy.
Dr Morrison spoke on maternal nutrition and regulation of fetal growth, while Dr Hotham spoke on the importance of screening for use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs during pregnancy. Dr Hotham spoke of the significance of making tobacco a key target for intervention programs, as research showed most users of other substances also used tobacco.
More details about the symposium and the speakers can be found on the Sansom Institute website.