Purpose: Infants prenatally exposed to opioids exhibit withdrawal symptomology that introduce physiological noise and can impact newborn hearing screening results. This study compared the referral rate and physiological noise interpreted by number of trials rejected due to artifact on initial newborn hearing screenings of infants with prenatal…

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) is the term used to describe newborn experiences of withdrawal after exposure to opioids or other substances in utero (Kondili & Duryea, 2019). An urgent need exists for trained practitioners to serve children with NAS and their families (e.g., Gregory, 2014; Hancock et al., 2017; Health care Cost and…

Objective: We offer an overview of ADHD research using mouse models of nicotine exposure. Method: Nicotine exposure of C57BL/6 or Swiss Webster mice occurred during prenatal period only or during the prenatal and the preweaning periods. Behavioral, neuroanatomical and neurotransmitter assays were used to investigate neurobiological mechanisms of…

Parental substance use disorders negatively impact a child's development both prenatally and postnatally. Caregivers struggling with substance use disorders, and Opioid Use Disorder in particular, often have difficulty accessing appropriate holistic clinical interventions and are at high risk of losing custody of their children due to abuse and…

Substance use and alcohol abuse during pregnancy are significant public health concerns. Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a withdrawal syndrome that infants exposed to opioids may experience in the first few days of life. For most infants with NAS, exposure to opioids occurs during pregnancy while they are fetuses. Similarly, prenatal alcohol…

This study examined infants' early visual attention (at 1 month of age) and social engagement (4 months) as predictors of their later joint attention (12 and 18 months). The sample (n = 325), drawn from the Maternal Lifestyle Study, a longitudinal multicenter project conducted at 4 centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human…

Across the country, placements in foster care are rising. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 273,539 children in the U.S. entered foster care. In 34 percent of those cases, parental drug abuse was one of the factors leading to the child's removal from their family. Additionally, the U.S. Substance Abuse and…

Objective: To investigate the direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) on adolescent drug use, while controlling for other predictors of adolescent use. Method: Data are from a longitudinal study of PCE in which women and their offspring were assessed throughout childhood. Adolescents were interviewed at 15 years about their age at…

It is still under debate whether the reported effects of opioid maintenance therapy (OMT) on child behaviour are a direct effect of prenatal exposure, or whether other factors are involved. This prospective cohort study investigated three models: the teratogenic risk model, the maternal risk model, and a combined risk model in a group of 35…

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed to examine the long-term effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) on the language development of 12-year-old children using a prospective design, controlling for confounding prenatal drug exposure and environmental factors. Method: Children who were exposed to cocaine in utero (PCE; "n" = 183)…

Methamphetamine (meth) exposure during fetal development has the potential to adversely affect the development of multiple organ systems. An interdisciplinary case study of a 4-year 11-month-old child born to a mother addicted to meth revealed significant cognitive and communicative delays. Possible meth-related consequences for these delays…

This study examined the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on infant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity and reactivity at 7 months of infant age. Participants were 168 caregiver-infant dyads (87 cocaine exposed, 81 not cocaine exposed; 47% boys). Maternal behavior, caregiving instability, and infant growth and behavior were assessed,…

The increase in drug abuse in South Africa has had major social implications in the country. Problems associated with drug dependency are poverty, unemployment, a heavier burden on the health care system, the disintegration of family systems and drug-related crimes. Another area of concern is the link between drug abuse and child abuse. While…

Two models of vulnerability to socioenvironmental risk were examined in 337 African American children (M = 7.8 years) recruited to overrepresent prenatal alcohol or cocaine exposure: The cumulative risk model predicted synergistic effects from exposure to multiple risk factors, and the fetal patterning of disease model predicted that prenatal…

Objective: Methamphetamine use among pregnant women is an increasing problem in the United States. Effects of methamphetamine use during pregnancy on fetal growth have not been reported in large, prospective studies. We examined the neonatal growth effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure in the multicenter, longitudinal Infant Development,…