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Managing Infants with NAS: How We Develop Our Best Practices

In our recently updated Best Practices for Management of Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), ProgenyHealth addressed major issues affecting these babies and their families. This new document was researched and developed by the clinical team at ProgenyHealth, which includes neonatologists and pediatricians. The contents were then reviewed and approved by our Medical Advisory Board, a committee of practicing neonatologists from many regions across the U.S., to assure both scientific accuracy and consistency with current clinical practice patterns.

As there have been an increasing number of novel approaches to medically treat NAS, we have evaluated the medical literature to look at the use of secondary medications, i.e. medications other than morphine, to determine best practices.

We evaluated methadone, phenobarbital and clonidine. These, and others, form a second-line of treatment for particularly difficult to manage cases, or even, in the case of methadone, a medication choice which can be used as a primary treatment option.

As an example, if an infant is on the maximum recommended dose of morphine and is still having difficult to control withdrawal symptoms, the ProgenyHealth Best Practices guidelines can assist a clinician in choosing the best second-line agent, an appropriate dose, and guidance on how to adjust the dose as indicated.

Infants with NAS are a challenging patient population, and those with difficult to manage symptoms form an even more vexing subset. With our updated Best Practices for Management of Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, ProgenyHealth provides tools to help the clinician manage these cases to help ease the patient’s symptoms and provide targeted and up-to-date care.

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Dr. Andrew Meyer is Lead Medical Director at ProgenyHealth 

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