Children of Addicted Women

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to review follow up studies of children with prenatal drug exposure from preschool through adolescence. Specifically, the authors focus on the effects of prenatal exposure to cocaine, methamphetamine, and opiates on behavior and development. The largest number of studies have examined cocaine-exposed children. The authors identified 42 studies that suggest that there are unique effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on 4- to 13-year-old children, particularly in the areas of behavior problems, attention, language, and cognition. In addition, studies make reasonable attempts to control for possible confounding factors. Systematic research on the long-term effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure is just beginning but seems to be showing similar effects to that of cocaine. The literature on the on the long-term effects of children with prenatal opiate exposure is more substantial than the methamphetamine literature but it is still relatively sparse and surprising in that there is little recent work. Thus, there are no studies on the current concerns with opiates used for prescription mediation. There is a growing literature using neuroimaging techniques to study the effects of prenatal drug exposure that holds promise for understanding brain/behavior relationships. In addition to pharmacological and teratogenic effects, drugs can also be viewed from a prenatal stressor model. The author discuss this “fetal origins” approach that involves fetal programming and the neuroendocrine system and the potential implications for adolescent brain and behavioral development.

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

“…Indeed, no longitudinal follow-up studies have extended beyond the first few years of life. 175 Animal experiments have neither proven nor disproven the effects of chronic maternal opioid administration on dendritic growth and development in the fetus. 176,177 Recent observations of delayed or altered maturation of neuronal connective tracts and smaller neuroanatomic volumes in infants born to opioid-addicted mothers 178,179 have established an urgent need for studies of long-term outcomes in these children.…”

Systematic Review of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure and Adolescent Development

“…13 Another review through age 13 years found associations with behavior problems, attention, language, and cognition. 14 Little is known about PCE and adolescent functioning. 14 Adolescence is a transitional period characterized by increased social and cognitive demands, together with increasingly complex executive functioning abilities (eg, abstract reasoning).…”

“…14 Little is known about PCE and adolescent functioning. 14 Adolescence is a transitional period characterized by increased social and cognitive demands, together with increasingly complex executive functioning abilities (eg, abstract reasoning). 15 It is plausible that the small effects found in attention and emotion regulation among children with PCE early in life may increase during adolescence.…”

A Review of Neurobehavioral Challenges in Children Exposed Prenatally to Intrauterine Opioid

“…They have established that infants born to mothers consuming opioid during gravidity demonstrate less intellectual presentation and disturbed regulation than no exposed infants (48). Opioid children have similarly indicated less neuroanatomical capacities and directories of less significant development of neural tracts than controls (47)(48)(49).…”

“…Several authors state that 6 year old cocaine exposed boys, not girls, display more hyperactivity and mental complications than no exposed peers (54). Standard gender differences and a fewer ideal mannish prenatal initial point might inter relate by neonatal abstinences and augmented regulation difficulties regularly establish between drug unprotected kids (48).…”