The Amount of Pregnant Women Using Drugs is Increasing

Women who use drugs while pregnant greatly increase the chance that their child will be dependent on drugs as well. Statistics, in fact, suggest that as many as 60% of fetuses exposed to drugs develop neonatal withdrawal syndrome, which leads to nasty symptoms in newborn children, including irritability, poor sucking, tremors, seizures, diarrhea, vomiting, and shrill crying.

Now, a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that the amount of women using drugs during pregnancy has increased. While hospitals do screen for drug addictions in pregnant women, the system is far from foolproof. More and more, this problem is increasingly growing.

This is, obviously, a sad fact, but it probably speaks to the amount of overall drug use in society than merely drug use in pregnant women. With pregnant women, though, the stakes are definitely higher.

If you want to read more about the issue, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2009 population study, which explores increasing prevalence of neonatal withdrawal syndrome, is available to read for free, as is MedScape’s more general study of perinatal drug abuse and neonatal drug withdrawal.