A Guideline Weaning Opiate Dependent Infants

The scholarly project will provide an evidence-based guideline for the pharmacologic management of infants suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome. Neonatal abstinence syndrome increases the infant's length of hospital stay, impairs maternal-infant relationships, and impairs neurodevelopment (Patrick et al., 2012; Velez & Jansson, 2008). Sixty to 80% of infants whose mother took illicit opiates during pregnancy display signs and symptoms of NAS and the rate of infants diagnosed with NAS has increased from 1.2% to 3.4% from the year 2000 to 2009 (Bio, Siu, & Poon, 2011; Patrick et al., 2012; N. S. Seligman et al., 2010). An initial evidence-based literature review was conducted to assess outcomes of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome medically managed with different medications such as morphine, phenobarbital, methadone, clonidine, and buprenorphine. Further literature reviews will insure inclusion of all current relevant studies. In this project, I will provide an evidence-based guideline to provide a standardized approach to the medical treatment of NAS. This proposal includes the process of implementation, evaluation of the guidelines, and submission of a manuscript to a scholarly journal.