The national clinical guidelines for the management of drug use during pregnancy, birth and the early development years of the newborn (the Guidelines) were commissioned by the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy and were published in March 2006. As part of the response to Recommendation 9 of the NSW Ombudsman’s Report of Reviewable Deaths in 2005: Child Deaths, NSW Health was required to investigate the issue of promoting and ensuring compliance with the Guidelines. The findings from a study undertaken to identify the current levels of awareness, knowledge and compliance with the Guidelines across NSW indicated that further work was required. Most notably the guidelines required updating to bring them in line with changes to the National Health and Medical Research Council Guidelines regarding alcohol use in pregnancy; recent research findings with respect to the safety of buprenorphine use in pregnancy and to ensure that the guidelines were suitable for the NSW context.
Project leads:
NDRAC, University of New South Wales