Substance abuse: infant and childhood outcomes

Many children are born to women who consume drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methadone, marijuana, and/or phencyclidine (PCP) during pregnancy. As a result, some children are growing up with both physical and developmental delays. Children with fetal alcohol syndrome have reported problems with growth, attention deficit disorder, and other medical problems. Impaired cognitive and neurologic functioning through the first 2 years of live has been documented for children exposed to methadone while in utero. Those children exposed to polydrug use including cocaine and marijuana seem to have difficulties with language development and verbal skills. Some of these deficiencies show improvement with early intervention and a nurturing environment, but in many cases the impairment continues throughout childhood. Because experimentation with drugs occurs at an early age, education related to drug prevention should begin early, possibly with school-aged children. Drug prevention education needs to be age and developmentally specific. The use of appropriate drug prevention strategies may help children make good decisions regarding drug use, especially during the teenage years when adolescent pregnancy may occur.