Staff Contact: Kelsey Hussey
On Nov. 16, organizations throughout the state signed up to participate in MHA’s collaborative focusing on neonatal abstinence syndrome. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that NAS is a multifactorial public health crisis. In the U.S., NAS incidence increased more than fivefold in a decade, rising from 2.8 per 1,000 births in 2004 to 14.4 per 1,000 births in 2014. In Missouri, the reported NAS rate climbed year over year from 2012 to 2015.
Throughout the next two years, participating organizations will focus on developing improvements in care related to the care of substance-exposed newborns, including keeping the mother-infant dyad intact; incorporating the Eat, Sleep, Console functional assessment model into practice; and establishing safe plans of care for the mother and infant. Teams will utilize an evidence-based implementation guide as the framework for their work.
MHA is excited to collaborate with the Missouri Telehealth Network Show-Me ECHO, “Mothers, Infants & NAS,” for the educational aspect of the collaborative. Registration for this ECHO is open and does not require participation in the NAS Collaborative to join.