Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to Public Health Question at jh.edu.

That's Public Health Question at jh.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith-Roggers.

Today, we are returning to the topic of treatment for substance use disorders during pregnancy,

including cases where babies are being taken by child welfare agencies because their parent was taking anti-addiction medication.

Saccini Bandara and Alex McCourt, both Johns Hopkins experts in opioid policy,

talk about how a tangle of policies and laws are

impacting pregnant people and their families, the role of child removal in the opioid epidemic,

and what needs to be done to bring a public health lens to the issue of treatment of substance

use disorders during pregnancy. You can find a link to our previous episode on this topic in the show notes.

Let's listen.

Saccini Vandara and Alex McCourt, thank you so much for joining us.

You both study how public health policies can improve the well-being of people who use drugs.

And today, we're going to talk about a situation where maybe the laws haven't

quite caught up to some of these policies. And that situation is that pregnant people who

decide with their doctors to start taking anti-addiction medication for opioid use disorder

are sometimes at risk for having their babies taken by child welfare agencies.

So first, let's talk a little bit about why a pregnant person might decide to use this medication.

And for this question, I'm going to go to you first, Saccini.

I think very simply put, methadone and buprenorphine are highly effective treatments for opioid addiction.

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