Cocaine: Its Effects on Maternal and Child Health

Abstract

Cocaine abuse has become one of America's leading public health problems. Its use throughout pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of abruptio placentae, stillbirth, and preterm labor. Cocaine‐associated neonatal complications include congenital malformations, decreased fetal growth, seizures, cerebral infarction and hemorrhage, auditory system deficits, sudden infant death syndrome, cardiac arrhythmias, necrotizing enterocolitis, and behavioral changes. Children followed throughout the first year of life continue to show developmental delay. Infants and children growing up in cocaine‐abusing families are at risk for drug‐related injuries. Accidental and intentional intoxication has occurred in infants and children from the smoke of freebase cocaine. The drug has also caused intoxication in breast‐feeding infants. Adolescents experimenting with cocaine are at risk, with an apparently high frequency of seizures and loss of consciousness, as well as behavioral changes and psychosocial dysfunction.