Crack Babies

Prenatal development is so important. Young babies developing in the womb are very sensitive to the actions of the mother. Everything that the mother takes the baby takes a part of as well. Drugs can have a devastating impact on the development of the baby in the womb. Fetal Alcohol syndrome is among the most well-known. Perhaps one that often slips out of thought is the abuse of cocaine by the mother during prenatal development. There have been several studies performed on the topic of prenatal cocaine exposure, but there have been mixed results.

                One particular study was a longitudinal study performed using 216 mother-child pairs. The study wanted to examine the possible effects prenatal cocaine exposure (PNE) could have on child behavior. The study sought to examine the relationship between PNE, parenting relationships, and child exposure to violence. The 216 pairs were divided into 2 groups. In the experimental group there were 116 mothers that used cocaine and 100 that did not. Participants were placed into the cocaine group if they tested positive on a standard urine test for cocaine and hair follicle test. Participants also were evaluated using a self-report method. Once a participant was placed into the cocaine group a match was found that did not abuse cocaine. The match was made based on socioeconomic status and age. There were a total of 6 follow ups. The mother child set was also evaluated on parenting style and exposure to violence. Mother and child were brought into a room with toys and told to interact like they would in their own home. The relationship was observed measure using a global 5 point ranking scale (Veira, et al., 2014). They were measured according to maternal warmth, sensitivity and harshness. A self-report method was used to determine the exposure to violence. Approximately 33% of children reported some level of violence exposure.

                The results of the study d  Since there were other variables examined in this study it may have affected the results for PNE and behavior.

id not show any strong relationship between PNE and behavioral problems. The study did show that the child’s exposure to violence was a significant predictor of behavioral problems. The findings of this study do not do much in the research of prenatal cocaine use. It does however benefit the area of behavior in children and their exposure to violence. This study could open the door to further studies into child behavior and how it is affected. There were limitations to this study. The fact that it was a longitudinal study has its own limitations. As with any longitudinal study keeping track of and maintaining the original sample size is very difficult.

Abstract

References

Veira, Y., Finger, B., Schuetze, P., Colder, C. R., Godleski, S., & Eiden, R. D. (2014). Child Behavior Problems: Role of Cocaine use, parenting, and child exposure to violence. Psychology of Violence, 266-280.