A former addict, and Project Prevention client, stated "An addicted woman will cradle her pipe before she cradles her own child."

This startling assertion is as real and truthful as one can address this problem. We hope to convey the scope the depths of this societal tragedy in the following paragraphs.

Stories such as these are needed to draw attention to what can happen. These are stories that could have been prevented and that's probably the saddest reality of all.

Three Short Years...

He was born addicted to drugs, weighing less than two pounds. He could not breathe without the assistance of a tube in his throat, could not eat, without the help of a tube in his stomach.

He was watched over by nurses that tended to him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The cost for those nurses was over four million dollars.

How do we know the cost? Because he died at the age of three!

His mother gave birth to another baby boy soon after his death. Showing no brain waves, the doctors made the painful decision to remove his life support system.

You may wonder what happened to the birth parentsÉ nothing!

Five Children, One Story...

He was born weighing one pound, eight ounces, spending four months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He had a broviac tube in his heart and an ileostomy for three years.

His mother gave birth to a total of five addicted babies. His four siblings are all on Ritalin for ADHD. All five children will be supported with tax dollars until the age of 18.

He is now nine years old and still developmentally delayed.

Unfortunate Rupture...

She was born to a mother who received no prenatal care. Her gestation was only 30 weeks due to her mother suffering a ruptured placenta. This rupture was caused by the drug use, according to her physicians.

At birth, she weighed two pounds, three ounces. She was born with twisted bowels, undergoing a major operation to repair them, all due to her mother's drug use. She was alcohol and fetal drug exposed.

She has nine siblings, all of which are in foster care, and two other died due to substance exposure. Her mother was only 27 years old at the time of her birth four years ago.

More Information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there were 740,000 substance exposed babies born in 1997. In Los Angeles, CA, 12,338 drug addicted babies were born between 1992 and 1996. This represents an average of eight addicted babies born everyday in one county. Some studies have shown that drug exposed children have trouble with language development and paying attention.

Could this be why (according to a 3/7/99 L.A. Times article) special education costs in California have risen 35% in the last decade? Special education costs per child range from $3,000 to $125,000 per year depending on the severity of child's learning disabilities and behavior problems.

Fewer than 20% of these babies, "substance exposed infants (SEI's)", go home with their mothers. The other 80% have legal petitions filed against the mother (and father if known) and are placed in foster care. Of the children removed from their parents in LA county, fewer than 25% are ever reunited. This means that over 75% of the drug mothers never recover long enough to take care of their chidren.

At birth, an SEI often shows unusual behavioral symptoms. When an SEI is unable to be placed in foster care, she or he remains in a nursery, a homelike environment. The county is paying the nursery $3,700 per month, compared to $621 per month for foster care.

An NIDA survey found that more than 5% of the four million women who gave birth in the U.S. in 1992 used illegal drugs while pregnant. In that survey, 11.3% African American, 4.4% white and 4.5% of Hispanic women used drugs during pregnancy, representing 113,000 white women, 75,000 African American and 28,000 Hispanic women. Alcohol use (very damaging to a fetus) was highest among white women.