High Yield USMLE Step 1 topic Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome🚩🚩🚩

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-06

[00:00:00]Third, doctors are advising non-pregnant patients to avoid pain medicines that are very strong and drugs during pregnancy and especially that especially applies to strong painkillers that are classically opioids. So, we are going to discuss a syndrome associated with that. So, the syndrome is neonatal abstinence syndrome. So, how would a patient present to you? You would you would see classically see a newborn and the patient would have autonomic symptoms.

[00:00:26]The autonomic symptoms would include tachypnea, that is fast respiration.

[00:00:30]Then you would have sneezing.

[00:00:32]Then the patient would also be experiencing diarrhea.

[00:00:36]And there would be persistent crying.

[00:00:42]And in some cases, you would also see a a high-pitched cry.

[00:00:49]The child would also be very irritable with hypertonia.

[00:00:56]Jittery movements.

[00:01:00]And in some cases, you would also notice seizures.

[00:01:03]More autonomic symptoms may include sweating and pupillary dilation. So, how I like to remember this is that normally opioids would cause pinpoint pupils, so opioid withdrawal causes pupillary dilation. Similarly, opioids usually cause constipation, so opioid withdrawal would cause diarrhea. And how you would respond to the clinical manifestations, you would try to first try symptomatic management that you would swaddle the baby and provide comfort to the baby.

[00:01:27]And then if if we talk about the treatment options, so what you also maintain a low stimulation environment.

[00:01:35]And for treatment, you give pharmacological treatment including morphine and methadone.

[00:01:42]So, this is only done when supportive treatment does not help. So, this is something that's very important both for preventative measures as well as for pregnancy care that you avoid strong pain medications as well as drugs. So, you need to remember when we are talking about neonatal abstinence and this particular scenario, this a particular scenario applies to both opioids and heroin abuse. Thank you so much for watching.