The Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine welcomed West Virginians for Affordable Health Care and the West Virginia Perinatal Partnership to its medical campus Friday, Sept. 15, for a roundtable discussion about prenatal substance abuse and exposure, particularly neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS.
West Virginia leads the nation in NAS—a group of health problems affecting newborns exposed to multiple drugs while in utero. The three-hour roundtable was part of the 2017 West Virginians for Affordable Health Care’s Kids’ Health Roundtable Series.
Panelists included Marshall School of Medicine faculty members James Becker, M.D., and Sean Loudin, M.D., as well as Marianana Footo-Linz, Ph.D., chair of the university’s psychology department. Additionally, Ron Stollings, M.D., an internal medicine physician, state senator and graduate of the School of Medicine, and others served on the 12-member panel moderated by Rahul Gupta, M.D., MPH, the state commissioner of West Virginia’s Bureau for Public Health.
