The Development of Children of Drug Addicts

Abstract

The present study compared 70 methadone-maintained mothers (MM) and their 70 preschool-age children to a matched control group of 70 non-drug-addicted mothers (NDA) and their 70 preschool-age children on mothers' personalities, intelligence levels, and parenting attitudes and behavior; and on children's behavior and intelligence and developmental levels. Findings showed that in comparison to the control group, MM mothers performed less adaptively on measures of intelligence, personality, and parenting behavior. Their scores on the parenting attitude measures reflected authoritarian childrearing beliefs. Children of MM mothers performed more poorly than children of NDA mothers on measures of intelligence and socially adaptive behavior. In a comparison of children of MM mothers who experienced withdrawal from drugs at birth to children of MM mothers who were not born addicted to drugs, results revealed a tendency for withdrawal children to have developmental delays, lower IQ scores, and lower heights and weights.

Cognitive function of youths born to mothers with opioid and poly-substance abuse problems during pregnancy

“…The significant effect sizes were in the range of approximately 0.5 to 0.9 standard deviations. The combination of cognitive functions within the normal range but significantly worse than a non-exposed group is in accordance with previous studies of young children with prenatal opioid or poly-drug exposure (Bauman & Levine, 1986;Bunikowski et al, 1998;Hans & Jeremy, 2001;Hunt et al, 2008;Johnson et al, 1984;Logan et al, 2011;van Baar & de Graaff, 1994;Wilson, 1989;Wilson et al, 1979) and youths with such prenatal exposure (Davis & Templer, 1988;Ornoy et al, 2010).…”

“…Some studies find that young children who have been exposed to opioids and multiple substances have greater impairments in general cognitive abilities than non-exposed children (Bunikowski et al, 1998;Hunt et al, 2008;Johnson, Diano, & Rosen, 1984;Logan et al, 2013;Moe, 2002a;Moe & Slinning, 2001;Salo et al, 2009;van Baar & de Graaff, 1994;Wahlsten & Sarman, 2013;Wilson, 1989;Wilson, McCreary, Kean, & Baxter, 1979), whereas others do not find such differences either before (de Cubas & Field, 1993;Kaltenbach & Finnegan, 1989;Melinder et al, 2013;Rosen & Johnson, 1985;Strauss, Lessen-Firestone, Chavez, & Stryker, 1979) or after controlling for covariates (Bauman & Levine, 1986;Lifschitz, Wilson, Smith, & Desmond, 1985;Messinger et al, 2004).…”

Developmental Consequences of Fetal Exposure to Drugs: What We Know and What We Still Must Learn

“…Additional reports indicate an increased incidence of respiratory insufficiency at birth (Maas et al, 1990), altered corrected QT interval on electrocardiogram during the first postnatal week (Parikh et al, 2011), postnatal hyperphagia (Martinez et al, 1999), disrupted auditory event related potentials (Paul et al, 2014), and myelination deficits (Walhovd et al, 2012). However, the prevalence of cognitive impairments produced by prenatal methadone has been questioned because some studies have not observed differences in cognitive development (de Cubas and Field, 1993;Hans, 1989;Rosen and Johnson, 1985) or performance (Bauman and Levine, 1986;Soepatmi, 1994;van Baar, 1990;van Baar and de Graaff, 1994;. These variations may be in part due to socioeconomic status and other variables (Hans, 1989).…”

Behavioural outcomes of four-year-old children prenatally exposed to methadone or buprenorphine: a test of three risk models

“…These drugs may have a negative effect on brain development, behavior, and cognition (Moe, 2002;Slinning, 2004;Walhovd et al, 2007). Several studies support the teratogenic risk model in that they link prenatal drug exposure to developmental problems, specifically problems in cognition (Baar & Graaff, 1994;Bauman & Levine, 1986;Konijnenberg & Melinder, 2014;Melinder, Konijnenberg, & Sarfi, 2013;Salo et al, 2009). However, whether the teratogenic risk model can account for behavioral problems commonly found in children of women in OMT remains to be investigated.…”