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Maternal depression and cognitive features of 9-year-old children prenatally-exposed to cocaine

Paul R Marques1, Judith L Pokorni, Toby Long

  • 1Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Calverton, Maryland 20705, USA. marques@pire.org

The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
|March 17, 2007
PubMed

Insights

Maternal depression and IQ significantly impact child development, more than prenatal cocaine exposure. Cocaine-exposed children

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Health

Background:

  • Prenatal exposure to substances like cocaine can affect child development.
  • Maternal characteristics are crucial factors in a child's developmental outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate cocaine exposure and maternal factors as predictors of cognitive, achievement, and language performance in school-aged children.
  • To investigate the relationship between maternal depression and verbal IQ in cocaine-exposed versus non-exposed children.

Main Methods:

  • A cohort of 47 cocaine-exposed and 46 non-exposed 9-year-old children were assessed.
  • Maternal measures included IQ, psychopathology, drug use, demographics, and environmental factors.
  • Child outcomes included intelligence, language, and achievement scores.

Main Results:

  • Child cognitive, language, and achievement scores were inversely related to maternal IQ and depression.
  • Cocaine exposure was a secondary or tertiary predictor for many outcomes.
  • Verbal IQ in exposed children strongly correlated with maternal depression (r = .54), unlike in the non-exposed group (r = .00).

Conclusions:

  • Maternal characteristics, particularly depression and IQ, are significant predictors of school-age child outcomes.
  • The impact of prenatal cocaine exposure may be less influential than maternal factors on cognitive and language development.
  • Maternal depression plays a critical role in the verbal IQ of cocaine-exposed children.

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