Exposure to psychoactive substances in women who request voluntary termination of pregnancy assessed by serum and hair testing

Cocaine use during pregnancy assessed by hair analysis in a Canary Islands cohort

“…Also, in our study, the correlation between cocaine use and concurrent antidepressants use was significant. This association was reported on previously by Joya et al [19] The finding requires a close follow-up of these newborns [33] because of the high risk of withdrawal syndrome and adverse effects due to prenatal exposure not only to cocaine but antidepressants as well.…”

“…Since drugs and their metabolites are permanently deposited in the protein matrix of the hair, they can be detected in hair several months after use, which provides an advantage over other biological markers, such as urine or blood which are limited to present only a "snapshot" of acute exposure to drugs in the previous 24-48 hours [13-15]. Moreover, maternal hair analysis allows for drug use studies in the first trimester of pregnancy and has proven to be more sensitive and stable compared to other matrices with large exposure windows, such as meconium or neonatal hair [16-19]. Acquiring maternal hair is easy and availability is a non-issue.…”

Fetal exposure to ethanol: relationship between ethyl glucuronide in maternal hair during pregnancy and ethyl glucuronide in neonatal meconium

“…However, the degree of agreement between detection of ethanol metabolites in neonatal meconium and maternal self-reported ethanol intake during pregnancy remains unclear [4][5][6][7][8][9][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. It has been shown that reliance on maternal self-reporting is associated with a high probability of error, with substantial underreporting [14,18,20,21].…”

Maternal Hair Analysis for the Detection of Illicit Drugs, Medicines, and Alcohol Exposure During Pregnancy

“…2 In Spain, the prevalence of drug of abuse consumption among women is 6.2%, 1%, and 0.3% for cannabis, cocaine, and amphetamines, respectively, in the last year, and in the childbearing age range, this percentage is increased to 13.3%, 2.1%, and 0.9%, respectively. [4][5][6][7][8] The continued use of illicit substances during pregnancy, as well as alcohol and tobacco, may lead to severe obstetrical, fetal, and neonatal outcomes and also to deleterious effects in exposed children. [4][5][6][7][8] The continued use of illicit substances during pregnancy, as well as alcohol and tobacco, may lead to severe obstetrical, fetal, and neonatal outcomes and also to deleterious effects in exposed children.…”