Eat, Sleep, Console Approach Beneficial for Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal

THURSDAY, May 4, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- For infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, use of the Eat, Sleep, Console care approach reduces the number of days until medical readiness for discharge, according to a study published online April 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Leslie W. Young, M.D., from the University of Vermont in Burlington, and colleagues enrolled 1,305 infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome who had been born at 36 weeks of gestation or more in a cluster-randomized trial at 26 U.S. hospitals. Hospitals transitioned from usual care using the Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Scoring Tool to the Eat, Sleep, Console approach at a randomly assigned time. The time from birth until medical readiness for discharge as defined by the trial was the primary outcome.

The researchers found that in the intention-to-treat analysis, which included 837 infants who met the trial definition of medical readiness for discharge, the number of days from birth to readiness for discharge was 8.2 and 14.9 in the Eat, Sleep, Console group and the usual care group, respectively, for a rate ratio of 0.55. The two groups had a similar incidence of adverse outcomes.

"The Eat, Sleep, Console approach substantially decreased the time until infants with opioid withdrawal were medically ready for hospital discharge, without evidence of short-term harms," the authors write. "Long-term follow-up is critical to further inform the safety of this approach."

One author disclosed financial ties to Provepharm and Tellus Therapeutics.

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