Postpartum Opioid Prescribing and Persistent Use in Western Countries

( Anesth Analg. 2024;138(5):967–969. doi: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000006953) Pain during childbirth varies from person to person, but many women rate their pain as severe and persistent, with roughly 20% of individuals who underwent cesarean delivery reporting scar pain and ∼6% of individuals who had a vaginal delivery reporting perineal or vaginal pain 6 months after delivery. Due to this persistent and severe pain, prescription of opioids directly after birth is not uncommon, but many clinicians are concerned about persistent opioid use that affects up to 2% of those exposed to opioids during the postpartum period. In countries with high numbers of births annually, this translates to a large burden, and solutions are difficult to identify due to varying opioid use patterns across countries and unavailable data in many of them.