Greater than 10% of Medicaid-enrolled women fill an outpatient opioid prescription after vaginal delivery, a recent study found. This retrospective cohort study included 164,720 Medicaid-enrolled women who delivered a liveborn neonate vaginally from 2008 to 2013, excluding women who used opioids during pregnancy or who had an opioid use disorder. Researchers found:

• 12% (n=18,131) of women filled an outpatient opioid prescription ≤5 days after vaginal delivery; of these, 14% (n=2,592) filled a second opioid prescription 6-60 days after delivery.
• 5,110 (28.2%) women had ≥1 pain-inducing condition.
• Predictors of filled opioid prescriptions with no observed pain-inducing condition at delivery included tobacco use and a mental health condition.
• A diagnosis of substance abuse disorder other than opioid use was associated with having a second opioid prescription 6-60 days after delivery, but not at ≤5 days.