Prenatal cocaine exposure

Prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), theorized in the 1970s, occurs when a pregnant woman uses cocaine including crack cocaine and thereby exposes her fetus to the drug. Babies whose mothers used cocaine while pregnant supposedly have increased risk of several different health issues during growth and development and are colloquially known as crack babies.^[1]

PCE is very difficult to study, because it rarely occurs in isolation; usually it coexists with a variety of other factors, which may confound a study's results.^[2] Pregnant mothers who use cocaine often use other drugs in addition, may be malnourished and lacking in medical care, are at risk of violence, and may neglect their children. Children with PCE in foster care may experience problems due to unstable family situations. Factors such as poverty that are frequently associated with PCE have a much stronger influence on children's intellectual and academic abilities than does exposure to cocaine in isolation.^[3] Thus, researchers have had difficulty in determining which effects result from PCE and which result from other factors in the children's histories.

PCE is associated with premature birth, birth defects, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other conditions. The effects of cocaine on a fetus are thought to be similar to those of tobacco, and are less severe than those of alcohol.^[4] No scientific evidence has shown a difference in harm to a fetus between crack and powder cocaine.^[5]

No specific disorders or conditions have been found to result for people whose mothers used cocaine while pregnant.^[6] PCE appears to have little effect on infant growth.^[7] Studies focusing on children of six years and younger have not shown any direct, long-term effects of PCE on language, growth, or development as measured by test scores.^[2]

"Crack baby" (or "cocaine baby" and "crack kid") was a term coined to describe children who were exposed to crack cocaine as fetuses, which emerged in the US during the 1980s and 1990s in the midst of a crack epidemic.^[8] Early studies reported that people who had been exposed to crack in utero would be severely emotionally, mentally, and physically disabled; this belief became common in the scientific and lay communities.^[8] Fears were widespread that a generation of cocaine-exposed children was going to put severe strain on society and social services as they grew up. Later studies failed to substantiate the findings of earlier ones that PCE has severe disabling consequences; these earlier studies had been methodologically flawed (e.g. with small sample sizes and confounding factors). Scientists have come to understand that the findings of the early studies may have been overstated.^[8]