Being addicted and pregnant isn't an automatic pathway to trouble: researchers say that negative birth outcomes can be avoided if patients get decent prenatal care and addiction treatment early in their pregnancy, WebMD reported June 26.

Delivering integrated prenatal care and addiction treatment also is cost-effective, according to researcher Nancy C. Goler of Kaiser Permanente and colleagues. The study of more than 49,000 women included 2,000 women enrolled in Kaiser's Early Start program for addicted mothers-to-be; the authors determined that those enrolled in the program had no significantly higher rates of problems like low birth weight, preterm labor or delivery, or stillbirth than non-addicted women.

Researchers also found that perinatal and addiction treatment reduced the number of maternal deaths.

The study was published in the Journal of Perinatology.