As around half of all pregnancies are unplanned, opioid use among women of reproductive age may result in exposure in unplanned pregnancies. Understanding prescription opioid use in women of reproductive age is important given that opioid exposure during pregnancy has been linked to adverse perinatal outcomes and congenital malformations in infants.

Using a standardised national pharmaceutical claims dataset, the study presented in this webinar examines the trends in the proportion of women of reproductive age that use and initiate prescription analgesic opioids in Australia between 2013 and 2020. The findings have implications for understanding the likelihood of inadvertent exposure during unplanned pregnancies.