The Pregnancy Recovery Center: A women-centered treatment program for pregnant and postpartum women with opioid use disorder

Abstract Objective To evaluate the impact of women-centered substance abuse treatment programming on outcomes among pregnant women with opioid use disorder (OUD). Methods We compared two retrospective cohorts of pregnant women with OUD on buprenorphine maintenance therapy who delivered an infant at the University of Pittsburgh from 2014 to 2016. Cohort 1 was composed of pregnant women who received women-centered OUD treatment services through the Pregnancy Recovery Program (PRC) and Cohort 2 was composed of pregnant women who received buprenorphine at OUD programs without women-centered services (non-PRC). Women-centered outcomes were defined as a) pregnancy-specific buprenorphine dosing, b) prenatal and postpartum care attendance, c) breastfeeding and d) highly effective contraception utilization. Chi-square and t -tests were used to compare outcomes between PRC and non-PRC patients. Results Among 248 pregnant women with OUD, 71 (28.6%) were PRC and 177 (71.4%) were non-PRC patients. PRC patients were significantly more likely to initiate buprenorphine during vs. prior to their pregnancy (81.4% vs. 44.2%; p p  = .02) compared to non-PRC patients. Likewise, PRC patients were significantly more likely to attend their postpartum visit (67.9% vs. 52.6%; p  = .05) and receive a long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) method (23.9% vs. 13.0%, p  = .03) after delivery compared to non-PRC patients. Finally, PRC patients had a smaller percent decrease in the rate of breastfeeding during their delivery hospitalization (−14.7% vs. −37.1%). Conclusions Incorporating women-centered services into OUD treatment programming may improve gender-specific outcomes among women with OUD.