Author: hatmaker510

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 3:11 am

Here’s a link to Dr. Junig’s blog, Suboxone TalkZone. I already did the search for his articles on pregnancy. http://suboxonetalkzone.com/category/pregnancy/ I’d suggest reading as many of his blog posts as you can on that subject. As for the dangers in the third trimester, I’ve just done a lot of reading from various sources on the internet. Basically there are risks with quitting opiates in all three trimesters. The first is more of a risk of miscarriage and the third trimester is more of a risk of premature labor (and honestly I can’t recall if there’s an increased risk of stillbirth or not, but I may as well be honest with you and tell you what I recall). You can do some internet searches for "opiate withdrawals third trimester dangers" – or some variation of that. You should come up with some of the same articles I did.

If you really want to go off, you should start SLOWLY tapering ASAP. But the best way to taper is to drop your dose by 10-25% every few weeks, allowing yourself to adjust to the new lower dose in between the drops. Some people only make dosage drops once a month, others every couple of weeks. If you’re stable now on 12 mg, you can probably drop down to 8 pretty quickly w/ little to no w/d, and the same down to 6 mg. It’s when you hit about 4 mg that it often gets harder to go lower. Like I said, I just don’t think you have enough time to do a proper taper, which is what you’ll need to do if you want to avoid severe withdrawals for both you and the fetus.

My unsolicited opinion is that if you really want this baby, it would probably do best with you just tapering down slowly during the rest of your pregnancy but to stay on a low dose. But take my opinion with a grain of salt. This is obviously a very personal decision. I do urge you to find two new doctors ASAP. Again, for both of you. Good luck.