Does prenatal exposure to opioids, specifically Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), affect the visual functioning of school children? Yes, it does. And whether mom was treated with methadone or buprenorphine makes a difference.

Title: Visual function in Norwegian children aged 5–13 years with prenatal exposure to opioid maintenance therapy: A case–control study

Published in Acta Ophthalmologica, September 2024

Summary in plain English :

The goal of this study is to check how well the eyes and vision work in kids who were exposed to opioid medications during gestation. The researchers were particularly interested in differences dependent on whether the women took methadone or buprenorphine during pregnancy.

The scientists worked with 63 kids who were between 5 and 13 years old. These kids were exposed to opioid medications before they were born. They compared them to another group of 63 kids who were the same age and gender but were not exposed to opioids before they were born. They checked how well their eyes worked by looking at things like how clearly they could see, the alignment of their eyes, the need for glasses, how they saw colors, and their peripheral vision.

Here's what they found:

1. Kids who were exposed to opioid medications before they were born had worse eyesight. This means they couldn't see as clearly as kids who weren't exposed to opioids, whether they were using their best eye, worst eye, or both eyes together.

2. Some of the kids exposed to opioids had a condition where their eyes didn't align properly (strabismus). This was more common in the group exposed to opioids (30%) compared to the group that wasn't exposed (4.8%).

3. Some of the kids exposed to opioids had a condition called nystagmus, where their eyes moved involuntarily. This was more common in the exposed group, too.

4. The kids exposed to opioids had a harder time adjusting their focus, like when they switch between looking at something up close and something far away, compared to the other kids.

5. Even when they considered other factors like the use of multiple drugs and being smaller at birth, the differences in eyesight, strabismus and nystagmus, still existed between the two groups.

6. Among the kids exposed to opioids, those whose moms took methadone had worse eyesight, more eye alignment issues, more nystagmus, and more issues with being farsighted and having astigmatism compared to those whose moms took buprenorphine.

Many thanks to the authors of this article: Anne Kathinka Aslaksen, Gro Horgen Vikesdal, Marit Torbergsen Voie, Megan Rowlands, Jon Skranes, Olav H. Haugen

The full report is accessible here: https://doi.org/10.1111/aos.15764