Louisiana Substance Use in Pregnancy Toolkit

Click here to view or download the toolkit.

Louisiana is improving the health outcomes of mothers and babies as a participant in the Innovation Accelerator Program for Substance Use Disorders (IAP/­ SUD) with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This collaboration began in January 2015 and provides Louisiana the opportunity to advance its state-specific aims and goals related to substance use disorders. Louisiana has chosen Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) as its priority topic.

The project hopes to increase early identification, coordinated referral and treatment engagement by 5 percent for mothers and babies between birth and 12 months of age who are at risk of NAS when compared to 2013 rates and using baseline data from three pilot sites.

This toolkit was created for healthcare providers to:

• Provide key information about the impact of legal and illegal substances on a woman's pregnancy and on the unborn child.
• Encourage use of evidence-based practices and tools to improve care and decrease risks associated with substance use during pregnancy and address co-morbid conditions such as depression and intimate partner violence.
• Improve collaboration among primary care and behavioral health treatment providers in the care of pregnant women.