Cocaine crack babies

Use and abuse of cocaine have skyrocketed in recent years, provoking much public alarm. Sensational news stories about crack, with graphic descriptions of inner-city crack houses and impaired "crack babies" born to addicted mothers, led directly to escalations of the current war on drugs. For drug warriors crack is the new devil drug, so dangerous as to justify the most repressive measures. 

In the USA 100 000 crack cocaine babies are born each year, and an increasing number of anomalies is being linked to maternal cocaine abuse (252, 253). However, it is unclear by what mechanism cocaine affects the fetus. Interruption of the intrauterine blood supply, with subsequent destruction of fetal structures, may account for some of its effects (254). 

The correlation between cocaine levels in the hair of mothers and their babies was investigated with 60 mother/baby pairs. All mothers had used crack cocaine during pregnancy. Hair that grew during the last trimester was used for this correlation. All mothers who reported cocaine use were found to have cocaine in their hair. For optimum correlation (r = 0.67) between drug levels in the hair of the mothers vs. that in the hair of their babies, it was necessary to exclude hair that was cosmetically treated from the comparison. 

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