Debbie Smullen

Josh Kim, Staff Writer

(July 19, 2019) In 2018, there were a reported 2,114 opioid-related deaths in Maryland. To raise awareness of this public health crisis, the Grace Center for Maternal and Women’s Health and Worcester Goes Purple will host a Motherhood Walk on Saturday, July 20, to shed light on this issue, and to show support to victims of substance abuse.

The walk will be held at Stephen Decatur Park on Tripoli Street in Berlin. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the walk will start at 9 a.m.

There is no cost to participate, but event organizers do suggest a $20 donation that will go toward funding health care services to mothers and their families, free of charge.

Grace Center’s mission for the Motherhood Walk is to come beside women throughout their maternal journey to educate and empower them to fight against addiction.

The Grace Center in Berlin offers free services and programs to young parents. These services range from maternal and paternal support groups, to ultrasound examinations and urine tests.

The center is partnering with Worcester Goes Purple—an awareness project that focuses on community engagement and substance abuse prevention—for the event.

“Opioid addiction really is an epidemic in the United States,” Worcester Goes Purple Event Coordinator Debbie Smullen said. “Already this year, over 100 Maryland citizens have died from opioid overdoses.”

The United States has seen three waves of opioid overdoses.

The first wave began in the 1990s when doctors started overprescribing prescription opioids to patients. Prescription opioids, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, are used to treat moderate to severe pain.

However, prescription opioids are highly addictive, and almost one in four patients receiving long-term opioid treatment struggle with opioid addiction, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The epidemic grew, and in 2010 the second wave began and the United States saw a sharp rise in heroin overdoses.

Researchers found that 86 percent of young drug users had used opioid pain relievers non-medically, prior to using heroin.

Currently, the U.S. is in its third wave, as more and more Americans are dying from overdosing on synthetic opioids such as Fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Since 2009, the opioid crisis has killed 10,936 people in Maryland.

“Addiction is actually a verified medical condition,” Smullen said. “It really is no different than if someone is diabetic, [or] if they have cancer. It’s an illness. So…because of the stigma associated with the opioid addiction, people are more reluctant to get help.”

The Motherhood Walk is an opportunity for members of the community to learn about the epidemic and encourage more engagement.

“People are afraid to talk about it,” said Dori Magee, Grace Center’s director of support services and Motherhood Walk organizer. “We want people to be more loving and kind and understand that it affects every family in some way, form or fashion.

“We wanted to let people know that we’re here to support them in anyway, through their pregnancies or after their pregnancies, as well as we want to support our community as [it] goes purple,” she added.

For more information on the event, visit www.gracematernalhealth.org/events, the Grace Center and Worcester Goes Purple Facebook pages, or call 443-513-4124.