Simultaneous determination of 137 drugs of abuse, new psychoactive substances, and novel synthetic opioids in meconium by UHPLC-QTOF

New psychoactive substances (NPS) have been introduced into the market in recent years, with new analytes reported every year. The use of these substances in women can occur at any stage of life, even in the childbearing age. Drug use during pregnancy presents significant risks for the mother and the fetus, so it is important to have tools that allow to detect prenatal exposure to these substances of abuse. Therefore, an analytical method for the determination of 137 NPS and other drugs of abuse in meconium by UHPLC-QTOF was developed and validated for semi-quantitative purpose. Linearity range, limit of detection (LOD), precision, matrix effect, selectivity, and specificity were evaluated. For all analytes, the calibration curves were studied in the ranges between 2, 10, or 50 ng/g and 750 or 1000 ng/g, (depending on the analyte) and the LOD ranged between 0.04 and 2.4 ng/g. The method was applied to 30 meconium specimens from cases in which fentanyl had been administered as epidural anesthesia at the time of delivery or cases in which the maternal hair was positive to other drug of abuse. Four meconium samples tested positive for fentanyl (range concentration = 440–750 ng/g) and two samples tested positive to acetylfentanyl (range concentration = 190–1400 ng/g).