PERSPECTIVES
Drug misuse during pregnancy
Drug misuse during pregnancy and fetal toxicity
Academic Division of Child Health, University of Nottingham, Derbyshire Children’s Hospital, Derby, UK
Correspondence to:
Professor Imti Choonara, Academic Division of Child Health, University of Nottingham, Derbyshire Children’s Hospital, Uttoxeter Road, Derby DE22 3DT, UK; imti.choonara@nottingham.ac.uk
Perspective on the paper by Garcia-Bournissen et al (see page 351)
Keywords: drug abuse; methamphetamine; pregnancy; toxicity
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The typical age at which women in North America and Europe misuse drugs encompasses their childbearing years. In the USA, according to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 3.9% of pregnant women admitted using illicit drugs in the previous month.1 However, maternal self-report probably underestimates the problem to a marked extent. In a sample of over 3000 babies born to an obstetric population considered high risk for drug misuse, 44% tested positive for morphine, cocaine or cannabinoid by meconium immunoassay. In contrast, only 11% of the mothers admitted illicit drug use.2 Methamphetamine is the most widely misused amphetamine with a rapid global increase in use throughout the 1990s. This now appears to be stabilising although use in the UK has remained notably lower than in other countries.3 In contrast, in a recent study of 1632 mothers across the USA, 5.2% were found to
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in ADC Online
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
