Adopt A Crack Baby

Does that thought give you the shivers? Perhaps it shouldn't. Turns out that maybe they ain't so bad. LOL

In the late '80s and early '90s, the media used a few small studies of babies born of cocaine-addicted mothers to convince America that thousands of children were permanently damaged. Dr. Ira Chasnoff, of the National Association for Perinatal Addiction Research and Education, after studying only 23 babies, reported that mothers were delivering babies who "could not respond to them emotionally." He told People magazine the infants "couldn't respond to a human voice." This led to a frenzy of stories on "crack babies." Many people still believe "crack babies" are handicapped for life.

It isn't true. It turns out there is no proof that crack babies do worse than anyone else. In fact, they do better, on average, than children born of alcoholic mothers.

Comments

[jolari]

great to hear-- So many of these children were never adopted because of the stigma of being a "crack baby."
Sometimes we forget that medicine is a science. As more knowledge is gleaned about a subject (disease or illness) diagnoses, treatments & preventions may change.

[mylena]

well and how do they compare with babies whose mom where neither on crack or alchohol ?

In any case, for those babies it is horrible the first day when they get born, because they have to get clean... after that I think they can develop as any other child, as it seems touching adn to be hold is a very important thing for babies, if not they might indeed be emotionally impaired.

[Righty-Tighty]

I worked at a learning center in the early nineties, and we had a gorgeous little doll who was born addicted to crack. Mommy got clean, and was doing a wonderful job of taking care of her baby at that point, but the baby did have some unusual behaviors. For example, during naptime, she would rub her feet together until they bled if you didn't intervene. Also, if put into "time-out" her caregiver would have to hold her or she would beat her head against the wall. Otherwise, she was well behaved, and beautiful in everyway.

[justobserving]

righty-those behaviors sound like sensory integration disorder, might not be linked to the crack at all.

[annie]

It is about time that people stopped using labels to label people. These kids have to grow up eventually, and just how are they going to figure themselves fitting into society when they have been given a 'label'. Before they even start, having a lebel attached to you is a handicap in itself!!