The New York Times (5/1, D6, Belluck, Subscription Publication) reports, “The fast-growing abuse of prescription drugs has reached maternity wards in hospitals across the country, with the number of pregnant women addicted to opiate drugs — and the number of babies born experiencing withdrawal symptoms — rising sharply over the last decade.” Researchers “looked at two large databases that included a representative sample of patients from across the country and found that the number of pregnant mothers using opiate drugs jumped fivefold from 2000 to 2009.” The investigators found that “the number of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome nearly tripled in the same period.”

USA Today (5/1, Szabo) reports that approximately “3.4 of every 1,000 infants born in a hospital in 2009 suffered from” neonatal abstinence syndrome, according to the study published online April 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. CDC researcher Andreea Creanga said, “The prevalence of drug use among pregnant women hasn’t changed since the early 2000s.” However, “the types of drugs that women are using is changing.”

The AP (5/1, Tanner) reports that altogether, “more than 13,000 US infants were affected in 2009, the researchers estimated.”

The Los Angeles Times (5/1, Kaplan) “Booster Shots” blog reports, “According to the federal data, 5.63 out of every 1,000 mothers who gave birth in a hospital in 2009 were addicted to opiates, up from 1.20 per 1,000 in 2000, the study found. Experts estimate that 60% to 80% of babies exposed to heroin or methadone in utero wind up addicted themselves.”

Bloomberg News (5/1, Ostrow) reports, “Newborns dependent on opiates were more likely to have increased irritability, tremors, respiratory problems, feeding issues and seizures and be born at low birth weight, the study showed.”

The CNN (5/1, Smith) “The Chart” blog reports, “The average hospital stay for a baby born withdrawing from painkillers is 16 days, according to the JAMA study, and 77% of the time, babies with NAS were charged under state Medicaid programs.”

Also covering the story were the Detroit Free Press (5/1, Erb), Reuters (5/1, Pittman), HealthDay (5/1, Mann), WebMD (5/1, Rubin),BBC News (5/1), and MedPage Today (5/1, Fiore).

Related Links:

— “Abuse of Opiates Soars in Pregnant Women,”Pam Belluck , The New York Times, April 30 , 2012.

HealthDay (4/30, Goodwin) reports, “Teens with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) and teens who start using cigarettes, drugs or alcohol tend to share at least one personality trait: impulsiveness, experts say. But a new brain-imaging study of nearly 1,900 14-year-olds finds that the brain networks associated with impulsivity in teens with AD/HD are different compared to those who use drugs or alcohol.” The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that “from a neurological standpoint, AD/HD and substance use may not be nearly as closely tied as previously believed”

Related Links:

— “Teen Impulsiveness Has Different Sources in ADHD, Substance Use,”Jenifer Goodwin , HealthDay, April 30, 2012.

HealthDay (4/28, Preidt) reports, “Poor mothers who are single or who have depression are more likely to overfeed their infants by adding cereal to baby bottles, a practice that can lead to excess weight gain in infants,” according to a study presented at a pediatrics conference. “For the study, US researchers examined data from 254 mothers of infants in low-income, primarily Hispanic households and found that 24 percent of the mothers put cereal in baby bottles.” Notably, “those with depression were 15 times more likely to do so than those without depression.”

Related Links:

— “Low-Income Mothers May Overfeed Their Infants,”Robert Preidt , HealthDay, April 30, 2012.

HealthDay (4/30, Preidt) reports, “Special-needs youth with chronic medical conditions or developmental disabilities are at risk for anxiety and depression if they’re excluded, ignored or bullied by other young people,” according to a study presented yesterday at a pediatrics meeting. After examining questionnaires filled out by 109 special-needs children ranging in age from eight to 17 and their parents, “researchers found that being bullied and/or excluded by peers were the strongest predictors of increased symptoms of depression or anxiety in the young patients.”

Related Links:

— “Being Bullied Tied to Anxiety, Depression in Special-Needs Kids,”Robert Preidt , HealthDay, April 30, 2012.

The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune (4/30, Lyon) reports that neuropsychologist Sam Goldstein, PhD, of Salt Lake City, UT, has expressed “skepticism for recent findings that one in 47 children in Utah and one in 88 children in the nation fall on the autism spectrum. The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he believes, is ‘extremely flawed.'” He may not be alone in his skepticism. “Critics question whether increased awareness accounts for the jump, or the expanded definition of autism spectrum disorders. Children may be being misdiagnosed, or parents may be seeking the diagnosis to access services.” Still other experts believe many youngsters may have always displayed such behaviors, but their behavior was not considered as a disability.

Related Links:

— “Are increases in autism rates in Utah, U.S. truly real?,”Julia Lyon , The Salt Lake Tribune, April 29, 2012.

On its front page, in the first part of a two-part story, the Boston Globe (4/30, A1, Lazar, Carroll) reports, “Federal data show that roughly 185,000 nursing home residents in the United States received antipsychotics in 2010 contrary to federal nursing home regulators’ recommendations — often elderly people…who have Alzheimer’s or other dementias.” The medications, “which are intended to treat severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, can leave people in a stupor.” What’s more, “the US Food and Drug Administration has issued black-box warnings — the agency’s most serious medication alert — about potentially fatal side effects when antipsychotics are taken by patients with dementia.”

A separate Boston Globe (4/30, Carroll) piece explains the methodology used by the Globe in arriving at its conclusions. “The Boston Globe examined data on more than 15,600 nursing homes across the nation for its investigation of antipsychotic drug overuse. The information was supplied by the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 19 months after a Freedom of Information Act request was submitted.” The first set of data involved “the percentage of long-term residents without a psychosis or related condition who received antipsychotics contrary to federal nursing home regulators’ recommendations,” while “the characteristics of each home, such as staffing levels, number of patients on Medicaid, and the number reported by staff to have behavioral problems” made up the second set of data.

According to the USA Today (4/30, Eversley) “On Deadline” blog, “At more than one in five US nursing homes, anti-psychotic drugs are administered to people who do not have a condition that warrants their use, the Globe reports.” However, “members of the nursing-home industry…told the Globe the drugs are sometimes necessary to keep people from hurting themselves and/or others.” In fact, “Frank Grosso, vice president of pharmacy services at Genesis Health Care, owner of more than 200 nursing homes, told the news organization that sometimes patients are given lower doses than someone with a psychosis and the data do not reflect that.”

Related Links:

— “Use of antipsychotic drugs raises alarm,”Kay Lazar , The Boston Globe, April 29, 2012.

MedWire (4/27, Cowen) reports, “The use of progestin-only contraceptives is associated with an increased risk for current mood disorders in women, while the use of combined estrogen and progestin contraceptive agents is associated with a reduced risk,” according to a study published online April 24 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. In 498 Australian women of childbearing age, all of whom were evaluated for mood disorders, researchers found that “women taking progestin-only contraceptives were more likely to have a current mood disorder than those who were not taking progestin-only agents, at an odds ratio of 3.0.” In comparison, “women taking combined contraceptive agents were less likely to have a mood disorder than those who were not taking such agents, at an OR of 0.3.”

Related Links:

— “Contraceptive use linked to current mood disorder risk in women,”Mark Cowen , MedWire News, April 27, 2012.

MedWire (4/27, Grasmo) reports, “Adolescents who use methamphetamine or methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) are at risk for developing subsequent depressive symptoms,” according to a study published online April 19 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. After following some 3,880 Canadian secondary-school children for five years, researchers found that “both MDMA and methamphetamine use significantly increased the likelihood for having elevated depressive symptoms in the following year (odds ratio [OR]=1.7 and 1.6, respectively).” What’s more, “individuals who used both MDMA and methamphetamine, but not those who used just one of the drugs, were significantly more likely than nonusers to report elevated depressive symptoms the following year (OR=1.9).”

Related Links:

— “Methamphetamine, MDMA use increases risk for depressive symptoms,”Ingrid Grasmo , MedWire News, April 27, 2012.

HealthDay (4/27, Goodwin) reports that “nearly two-thirds of US children with an autism spectrum disorder have been bullied at some point — according to a recent survey of nearly 1,200 parents by the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Interactive Autism Network.” The story quotes Connie Anderson, community scientific liaison for the Interactive Autism Network, saying, “Part of the reason the children are so vulnerable is that the heart of autism is a social disability. It’s really hard for them to read the social world, to interpret what’s going on, to make an appropriate response, something most people do naturally.” Bullying is said to reach its height in grades 5-8.

Related Links:

— “Battling the Bullying of an Autistic Child,”Jenifer Goodwin , HealthDay, April 26, 2012.

ABC World News (4/26, story 8, 0:35, Sawyer) reported, “The Centers for Disease Control announced today a staggering number of Americans, 30% of us, are not getting enough sleep.”

NBC Nightly News (4/26, story 6, 1:45, Guthrie) reported that according to the CDC’s Dr. Ileana Arias, “Unfortunately, what we found is that about a third of working adults get only six or fewer hours every day of sleep.” NBC News chief science correspondent Robert Bazell, said, “Among health care workers, just over half said they don’t sleep enough. For those in the transportation and delivery business, it was 70%.”

MSNBC /MyHealthNewsDaily (4/27, Rowan) reports, “When the results were broken down by age group, the findings showed people in the middle of their working years were most likely to report less than six hours of sleep a night: about 32 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 64, compared with 26.5 percent of those ages 18-29, and 21.7 percent of those 65 and older.” Meanwhile, “there were also differences among races. Black workers (38.9 percent) and Asian workers (33.2 percent) were significantly more likely to report short sleeps than white workers (28.6 percent) or Hispanic workers (28.8 percent), the report said.”

HealthDay (4/27, Reinberg) reports, “About 44 percent of night shift workers get too little sleep, compared to about 29 percent of people working the day shift.”

WebMD (4/27, Mann) reports, “Others who are not getting enough sleep include people who hold down more than one job, widows, divorcees, or recently separated partners.” These “findings are based on data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey.” The report is published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The Minneapolis Star Tribune (4/27, Peifer) “Health Check” blog also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “One-third of US workers don’t get enough sleep,”Karen Rowan , MyHealthNewsDaily, April 27 , 2012.