Crack-exposed infants may not be in as much danger as previously thought, according to a Boston University study questioning the validity of the crack baby theory.
Tobacco, marijuana and alcohol usage by pregnant women may be more harmful to their unborn children than cocaine, according to a team headed by Dr. Deborah Frank at the BU School of Medicine and School of Public Health.
The study, which appeared in the March 28 issue of American Medical Association Journal, said among children age six and younger, “there is no convincing evidence that prenatal cocaine exposure is associated with developmental toxic effects that are different in severity, scope or kind from the sequelae of multiple other risk factors.”
“As rates of cocaine addiction soared in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the media described these children as ‘doomed,’ a biologic underclass of children unable to learn or love. That is simply not the case,” said Frank, associate professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and a pediatrician at the Boston Medical Center.
Data taken from studies done since 1984 was brought together and evaluated. The results of 36 studies were assessed, reviewing post-neonatal outcomes of children exposed to cocaine focused on areas such as physical growth, cognition, language, motor and behavior, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study found no consistent, harmful relationship between prenatal cocaine exposure and physical growth, developmental test scores or receptive or expressive language.
Crack produces excitable, stressed infants but might not cause hemorrhages, lesions and brain damage as previously thought, according to the Brown University News Bureau.
“In the majority of the research we analyzed, we did not find a negative association of prenatal cocaine exposure, independent of environmental risk and prenatal exposure to other psychoactive substances with developmental test scores from infancy to six years,” Frank said.
The study suggested environmental factors may contribute more to developmental impairments than cocaine.
“In fact, the research suggests poverty plays a much more destructive role in these children’s lives than prenatal cocaine exposure,” Frank added.
“The widespread popular belief that a mother’s cocaine use inflicts unique and permanent damage on the child’s development rests on uncritical reading of studies which did not conform to the principles of careful science,” she said.
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