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2 May 2006
Crack Babies A Myth, Say Researchers 
University of Florida (UF) researchers writing in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics say that infants exposed to cocaine before birth exhibit no more behavioral problems than other children their age. "People have expected very bad things," said Tamara D. Warner, lead author of the study. "These dire predictions were made about this group of kids. This study shows there really aren't the huge problems that we might expect." Warner's team studied 3-year-olds exposed to crack and cocaine in the womb and a similar group of children who were not. Surprisingly, they found that disruptive behaviors in children actually seemed to be linked more closely to maternal depression, rather than prenatal cocaine exposure. The researchers found that mothers, on average, reported a high number of symptoms of depression, regardless of whether they used cocaine during pregnancy. Interestingly, biological mothers tended to report more behavioral problems than non-maternal caregivers and foster parents, who were caring for about half the cocaine-exposed children by the time they reached 3. "One might have expected that caregivers who took on children with prenatal cocaine exposure would've expected [more problems] and reported a higher number of problems," Warner explained. "But that wasn't the case."
Most of the mothers in the study were poor, black and lived in rural North Central Florida. Warner said that poverty could explain why many of these mothers showed signs of depression, and in turn, depression could explain why mothers of cocaine-exposed and non-exposed children tended to report more behavioral problems, such as hyperactivity and impulsive behaviors. "Both sets of moms were reporting a large number of depressive symptoms and have been from the beginning. And that is probably more likely to result in emotional behavior problems for the children than prenatal cocaine exposure," she added. "None of this research should be taken as, 'It's OK to use crack when you're pregnant'," said Deborah Frank, at Boston University's Boston Medical Center. "It's not something women do for fun. It's something women do out of despair. The very high rates of clinically important depression in all the [maternal] caregivers are striking. We're finding that the most devastating effects are from the postnatal environment, not the prenatal environment." The new study builds on a previous one that reported that cocaine-exposed children exhibit only subtle problem-solving differences in school. "There were really dire things that are being predicted," said UF researcher Marylou Behnke. "It's encouraging that we're not seeing those kind of behavioral problems." Source: University of Florida
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