Prenatal Drug and Alcohol Exposure: Science Refutes Media Hype and Enduring Myths Based on the extraordinary misinformation that appears frequently in the popular press, many people believe that a pregnant individual who uses any amount of a criminalized drug or alcohol will inevitably harm or even kill the fetus. But media hype is not the same as science, and popular news reports have misrepresented the scientific facts about prenatal exposure to drugs. Research tells us that there is no scientific evidence of unique, certain, or irreparable harm for fetuses exposed to cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids, or cannabis in utero. Additionally, no criminalized substances have been found to be abortifacients.1 Misinformation related to substance use is frequently used to prosecute pregnant people, and in this post-Dobbs reality, these prosecutions will likely occur on a larger scale.
The “crack baby” myth falsely claimed that cocaine use during pregnancy would result in major
negative health effects on the unborn child such as seizures, developmental delays, and difficulty
socializing.2 However, in 2007 the U.S. Sentencing Commission concluded, “research indicates that
the negative effects from prenatal exposure to cocaine, in fact, are significantly less severe than
previously believed.”3 Additionally, in 2004, thirty leading doctors and researchers signed an open
letter explaining that “throughout almost 20 years of research, none of us has identified a
recognizable condition, syndrome or disorder that should be termed ‘crack baby.’”4 More recent
research has further supported this as a 2016 study found that “differences between
substance-exposed and non-substance exposed infants disappear within months after birth. For
example, differences in nervous system excitability and increased levels of physical stress in newborns
disappear after 1 month.”