Santa Fe clinic steps to the plate in opioid war

Project CARA (Care that Advocates Respect/Resilience/Recovery for All) supports pregnant and parenting people with substance use disorders, providing healthcare, addiction resources and obstetrics care in one spot. The program's hub-and-spokes model makes care more accessible, especially for those in remote areas. Data from the Project also indicates that participants of the program are more likely to attend prenatal and postpartum appointments than those outside of the program.

When the opioid crisis hit indigenous communities throughout North America, solutions that were working in urban areas, weren't available to these isolated, rural regions. To combat the crisis specifically as it relates to pregnancy, health care workers and community members from the tribes are working together to implement programs that connect newborns and their families with the medical assistance they need.

Six programs throughout the state, including the SUN Project and Project CARA, are working to provide support to pregnant mothers navigating a substance use disorder. With support from the North Carolina Perinatal Substance Use Disorder Network, the programs share best practices for treating perinatal substance use and expand access to treatment. Project CARA alone serves more than 200 patients each year.

Casa Mía provides housing and support services for pregnant women and new mothers struggling with addiction. The program is run out of an old house and is currently home to nine women. Staff at Casa Mía provide mental health care, recovery resources and work to destigmatize substance abuse to prevent mothers from losing their children to the foster care system.

Hushabye Nursery cares for babies born withdrawing from addictive substances they were exposed to in the womb. While the babies are receiving care, the Nursery connects parents with addiction treatment, child services and other necessary resources like housing assistance. Since opening its permanent facility in 2020, Hushabye Nursery has cared for more than 400 babies.

When faced with an opioid crisis, the government in Portugual made a drastic decision to decriminalize drug use. This shift in policy allowed for a shift in perspective – addiction problems could now be treated as a public health issue, rather than a criminal issue. This approach resulted in a significant decrease in overdoses, and is now a model that U.S. cities, such as Philadelphia, are looking at to learn from.

For pregnant women impacted by the opioid epidemic, the lives of their infants are often affected if not given proper medical treatment after birth. Realizing this, a program in Kettering, Ohio that specifically works with this population has plans to expand their care after seeing success in its first year.

In 2001, facing a 20-year opioid epidemic, Portugal decriminalized all personal drug use, meaning people carrying drugs for personal use could no longer face prosecution or jail. The approach, met with public support, offered people access to services like safe injection sites and counseling and showed demonstrable success in declining opioid related deaths, the spread of infectious diseases, and drug use all together. As the rest of the world faces a similar crisis, Portugal could be a model response.

Nationwide, the United States is seeing a widespread addiction to opioid use. To combat addiction in Denver, Colorado the city is piloting a program that administers buprenorphine to combat addiction in conjunction with biopsychosocial assessments conducted by therapists.

As the rates of infants born with opioid addictions rises, volunteer baby cuddlers are helping to fill the gap in overwhelmed neonatal units in Texas. Although there are still not enough hands to go around for the amount of babies being admitted, those that are able to receive an assigned baby cuddler are not just receiving comfort but are also able to ween off their addiction at a quicker rate.