May 7, 2025

For pregnant women in the U.S. with opioid use disorder (OUD), outpatient treatment episodes with medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) were associated with 86% higher odds of six-month treatment retention compared to treatment episodes without MOUD. A recent analysis of 2021 data determined that this translated to a 14.2 percentage point higher adjusted probability of six-month retention among treatment episodes with MOUD (43.1%) compared to those without it (28.9%).

The cross-sectional study analyzed 29,981 outpatient treatment episodes from a cohort of pregnant consumers receiving MOUD between 2015 and 2021, including methadone and buprenorphine. Overall, MOUD inclusion in treatment episodes increased from 65.0% in 2015 to 74.1% in 2021. Despite the increase in MOUD inclusion, overall retention rates remain low, highlighting the need for continued efforts to optimize treatment strategies and support for this high-risk population.

Most OUD treatment episodes among pregnant women occurred in states that expanded Medicaid (84.2%). About 71.9% of treatment episodes with MOUD and 28.2% of episodes without MOUD were in an expansion state. About 15.7% of treatment episodes were in non-expansion states. Of these episodes, 47.7% included MOUD and 52.3% did not include MOUD.

These findings were reported in Medication For Opioid Use Disorder And Treatment Retention Among Pregnant Individuals, by Valerie S. Ganetsky, PharmD, MSc; Noa Krawczyk, Ph.D.; and Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, Ph.D. The researchers analyzed data from the Treatment Episode Data Set-Discharges (TEDS-D), a national dataset managed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The TEDS-D tracks annual discharges from state-licensed, publicly funded addiction treatment facilities. The analysis focused on individuals who were pregnant at the time of admission and who reported an opioid as their primary substance and who were discharged from ambulatory, non-intensive, outpatient facilities.

The full text of Medication For Opioid Use Disorder And Treatment Retention Among Pregnant Individuals was published April 21, 2025, by JAMA Network Open. A free copy is available online at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2833024 (accessed May 1, 2025).

For more information, contact: Valerie S. Ganetsky, PharmD, MSc, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 1812 Ashland Avenue, Room 379, Baltimore, Maryland 21205; Email: vganets1@jhmi.edu; Website: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/departments/health-policy-and-management