Cocaine Use During Pregnancy
When the crack cocaine epidemic hit the shores of the western world in the eighties as well as the nineties, people were worried about the possible effects to unborn babies.
In fact, it remains to be one of the bigger preoccupations of medical science, to find out exactly how crack cocaine affects an unborn baby, and what vicissitudes there are for these "crack cocaine babies" later in life.
Ongoing research:
Luckily, long-term researches in the US and other parts of the globe are revealing that crack cocaine has very little effect on the mental development of unborn babies. It turns out that the use of cocaine was akin to the effects of tobacco smoke on unborn babies.
It does not compare however, to the effect of alcohol on fetuses. According to Deborah A. Frank, M.D., from Boston University:
"The argument is that it's not okay to use cocaine in pregnancy, any more than it's okay to smoke cigarettes during pregnancy. Neither drug is good for anybody."
Moral issues:
Cocaine use is more of a morality problem than a medical problem for many communities around the world. Simply put, you don't do drugs when you're pregnant. The very premise sounds awfully suspect, and whether medical science agrees or not, drug use will continue to be marginalized.
Effects:
It doesn't mean that if babies grow up to be active and smart kids that damage isn't present. According to the same studies, crack cocaine actually causes the fetuses to grow slower. Infants that have been exposed to crack cocaine during their nine month gestation period also have smaller heads.
The good news is, the body and the heads of such babies eventually catch up when they grow older. That is, if the parents take better care of the children after they are born.
Also, IQ is affected. Children that have been exposed to cocaine during their gestation period generally have lower IQ than those who weren't. The discrepancy is between 2 to 4 points on a standard IQ scale.
Another effect is that children that have been exposed have problems dealing with tasks that require immediate and sustained visual thinking.
In fact, it remains to be one of the bigger preoccupations of medical science, to find out exactly how crack cocaine affects an unborn baby, and what vicissitudes there are for these "crack cocaine babies" later in life.
Ongoing research:
Luckily, long-term researches in the US and other parts of the globe are revealing that crack cocaine has very little effect on the mental development of unborn babies. It turns out that the use of cocaine was akin to the effects of tobacco smoke on unborn babies.
It does not compare however, to the effect of alcohol on fetuses. According to Deborah A. Frank, M.D., from Boston University:
"The argument is that it's not okay to use cocaine in pregnancy, any more than it's okay to smoke cigarettes during pregnancy. Neither drug is good for anybody."
Moral issues:
Cocaine use is more of a morality problem than a medical problem for many communities around the world. Simply put, you don't do drugs when you're pregnant. The very premise sounds awfully suspect, and whether medical science agrees or not, drug use will continue to be marginalized.
Effects:
It doesn't mean that if babies grow up to be active and smart kids that damage isn't present. According to the same studies, crack cocaine actually causes the fetuses to grow slower. Infants that have been exposed to crack cocaine during their nine month gestation period also have smaller heads.
The good news is, the body and the heads of such babies eventually catch up when they grow older. That is, if the parents take better care of the children after they are born.
Also, IQ is affected. Children that have been exposed to cocaine during their gestation period generally have lower IQ than those who weren't. The discrepancy is between 2 to 4 points on a standard IQ scale.
Another effect is that children that have been exposed have problems dealing with tasks that require immediate and sustained visual thinking.
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