Substance Abuse

Maternal substance abuse: helping babies thrive.

This year, an estimated one million infants will be exposed to addictive drugs. This figure continues to rise, and with it, the tragic effects. Children born to substance-abusing mothers are often addicts at birth, suffering withdrawal symptoms like seizures, vomiting and breathing problems. Cocaine can cause infant strokes—or even death—while in the womb; alcohol leads to deformation and irreversible brain damage; nicotine use can rob a child of healthy lungs for life. And none of them made this choice.

Perhaps we can’t prevent maternal substance abuse. But we can help protect the children who suffer the consequences.

Scientists at ONPRC are leading the way in developing technologies that combat these negative effects. We have created models that reproduce the changes in fetal brain and lung development seen in affected human infants. Our discoveries have led to new therapeutic approaches that prevent maternal drug use from affecting the unborn. With these innovative breakthroughs, we can give the desperately needed help to those most at risk—and least capable of caring for themselves.