Prenatal Drug Exposure and Drug-Abusing Environments

Research Findings from February, 2000 Director's Report

This section lists selected summaries from NIDA funded research projects that investigate the consequences of prenatal drug exposure. The summaries provided were selected from recent issues of the Director's Report to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse. For a more comprehensive listing of NIDA funded projects see the Director's Report.

Level of In Utero Cocaine Exposure and Neonatal CNS Ultrasound Findings

Researchers in Boston report ultrasound findings suggestive of an association between vascular injury of the neonatal CNS and level of prenatal cocaine exposure. Three cocaine exposure groups were studied based on maternal report and infant meconium testing: unexposed, heavier cocaine exposure (>75th percentile self-reported days of use or meconium benzoylecognine concentration), and lighter cocaine exposure (all others). Analyses involved neonatal ultrasounds from 241 well, term infants. Infants with lighter cocaine exposure and unexposed infants did not differ on any of the ultrasound results. Infants with heavier cocaine exposure were more likely than unexposed infants to show subependymal hemorrhage in the caudo-thalamic groove (odds ratio of 3.88 with control for gender, gestational age, birth weight, maternal parity, blood pressure in labor, ethnicity, and use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana during pregnancy). The researchers suggest that the inconsistency between these findings and others reported in the literature may reflect previous lack of consideration of possible dose effects. The long-term functional implications of these findings remain to be determined. Children represented in this report continue to be studied as part of an ongoing longitudinal study of development relative to illicit drug exposure in utero. Frank, D.A., McCarten, K.M., Robson, C.D., Mirochnick, M., Cabral, H., Park, H., and Zuckerman, B. Level of In Utero Cocaine Exposure and Neonatal Ultrasound Findings. Pediatrics, 104, pp. 1101- 1105, 1999.