Twice as many expecting mothers are using opioids as there were a decade ago, a new study says.

The rate of opioid use during pregnancy doubled between 2008 and 2020, researchers recently reported in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

Such opioid use puts both mother and child at risk of dire health problems.

“Sadly, we know many people who are using opioids while pregnant hesitate to ask for help due to the fear of judgment, and we hope to see that change,” senior researcher Dr. Jamie Lo said in a news release. Lo is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

For the study, researchers tracked more than 5.5 million pregnancies in California. Of those, nearly 14,000 involved a woman who was taking opioids while expecting.

Researchers found that the percentage of women using opioids during pregnancy more than doubled, rising from 0.14% in 2008 to 0.33% in 2020.

Women taking opioids during pregnancy were up to twice as likely to have complications during delivery, and 71% more likely to give birth preterm, results showed.

Their infants had a 72% higher risk of dying and were 2.8 times as likely to require neonatal intensive care, researchers found.

These results indicate that addiction medicine needs to be considered a vital part of pregnancy care, researchers said.

“Pregnant patients already face a lot of difficulties in accessing care, but individuals with opioid-use disorders face additional barriers,” lead researcher Dr. Kristin Prewitt, a fellow in OHSU’s section of addiction medicine and department of maternal-fetal medicine, said in a news release.

“Here in Oregon, only 1 in 4 residential treatment programs offer care for pregnant persons, and some counties have no obstetric care or addiction care resources available at all,” she said.

“Evidence shows that linking patients to care earlier improves outcomes,” Prewitt said. “If we’re aware early on that an individual faces these additional risks, we can ensure they receive personalized, multidisciplinary care in the prenatal and postnatal periods, and ultimately when they move onto pediatric care with their child.”