Minor Essay 2

James Gartland

Eric Earnhardt

English 151

17 March 2011

Birth Defects' Relation to Pain Drugs

Having children is one of the most basic necessities of preserving our society. Pregnancy, one of the most important stages of reproduction causes a great deal of pain and discomfort for women. Although it is a natural process, many medical improvements are made to pregnancy more comfortable and less painful. Do the potential side effects of pain relief medications outweigh the benefits? New York Times writer Roni Rabin gave her views on this subject in her recent New York Times article “Risks: Pain Drugs May Lead to Birth Defects”.

In her article, Rabin refers to the National Birth Defects Prevention Study for 1997 through 2005. The study was conducted by the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as her main source of information. The study interviewed mothers from ten states to find a correlation between birth defects and the use of pain drugs during pregnancy. Only opioid based pain drugs, such as codeine and oxycodone, were included in the study.

Rabin claims that the recent study suggests that women who take opioid pain drugs will have a heightened risk of their child having birth defects. In the beginning of the article she states that, “babies whose mothers took opioids were considerably more likely than others to have congenital problems” (Rabin). Although the article does show a slight correlation between opioid treatment and certain birth defects, the results of the actual study show very little relation between the two. Rabin's use of the term considerable to describe how much more likely women who used the drugs were to have birth defects in their children is slightly misleading.

Despite her misleading opening to her article, Rabin backs her assertion well by providing statistics from the study. She reports that the study found that 2.6 percent of the mothers having babies with birth defects also had treatment with opioids before or during pregnancy. She goes on to say that the control group of women, whose children had no birth defects, only had a 2.0 percent usage of opioid treatments. These percentages mean that there was a .6 percent increase in use of pain relief drugs in women with children born with defects. This use of statistical information helps Rabin's credibility and strengthens her point that women using the pain relief drugs are more likely to have a child with birth defects than women who do not use them.

Although Rabin damages her credibility by using misleading language to open her article, she clarifies her early claims with statistical information later. Even though the statistics show that the correlation between oplioid use and birth defects is very small, it still exists. Any factor which increases the likelihood of birth defects, no matter how small, is not worth the risk. Children are the most important resource for the future, and there is no pain relief which is worth endangering one's own child. Rabin's point is validated because of her use of hard evidence to show that pain relieving medication used during pregnancy slightly increases the likelihood of birth defects, and any increase in birth defects is simply not worth the risk.

Works Cited

Rabin, Roni C. "Risks: Pain Drugs May Lead to Birth Defects." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/health/research/22risks.html?_r=1&ref=health>.