In Colorado, overdose has quietly become the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women—killing more mothers than infection, high blood pressure, or bleeding combined. But something shifted. Between 2022 and 2023, maternal overdose deaths dropped 60%, from 20 to eight.
The change tracks closely with one intervention: naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdose, now handed to mothers and their families before they leave the hospital with their newborn.
The numbers tell the story. From 2016 to 2020, Colorado recorded 33 maternal overdose deaths. Overdose and suicide have been the state's top two causes of maternal mortality every year since. Nationally, it's the same pattern—overdose leads the list, followed by homicide and suicide. The crisis is real, and it's been growing.
We're a new kind of news feed.
Regular news is designed to drain you. We're a non-profit built to restore you. Every story we publish is scored for impact, progress, and hope.
Start Your News DetoxBut the response is working. In 2023, The Naloxone Project—a Colorado nonprofit founded in 2021 by an emergency and addiction medicine physician—launched the Maternal Overdose Matters Initiative (MOMs) across the state's 48 birthing hospitals. Parents leaving with their baby now receive naloxone, instructions on recognizing overdose, and guidance on safe storage. The nasal spray form works for all ages, including infants.
The Naloxone Project has already distributed over 2,500 kits across 107 hospitals in Colorado and expanded to 16 states. That's infrastructure built in just a few years.
Why This Matters Beyond Substance Use Disorder
Here's what often gets missed in overdose conversations: it's not just people with diagnosed substance use disorder at risk. Prescription opioids—oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine—are routinely prescribed after surgery, including C-sections. Taken at home, even as prescribed, they can kill. Children finding medications in the house have died from accidental overdose too. In Colorado, 17 children died from opioid overdoses in 2024 alone.
This is why the shift matters. Naloxone in every new parent's hands isn't just harm reduction for one population—it's a family safety measure. A child who swallows a leftover pill, a partner with a hidden prescription habit, a mother herself prescribed painkillers after birth and taking more than intended. Naloxone covers all of it.
The cultural shift is broader than Colorado. Overdose reversal is now standard in Basic Life Support training alongside CPR. Administering naloxone is becoming what CPR was thirty years ago—a skill bystanders are expected to have when seconds count.
For people who do use opioids, surviving an overdose event often becomes a turning point. That second chance has led people into treatment: methadone, buprenorphine, therapy, peer support programs designed specifically for pregnant and parenting mothers. Survival plus access to treatment is the combination that works.
The data from Colorado suggests naloxone has become essential maternal health infrastructure. As overdose deaths among new mothers plummet, the evidence is clear: a medication that costs under twenty dollars, distributed at the moment of maximum family vulnerability, can save lives. For Colorado moms and families, it might be exactly that difference.
