Next-Generation Drug Problems : * The Women and Their Babies Need Earlier Attention

When March of Dimes volunteer Jodi Lenocker talks to high school students, she shows them a shoe box with a doll tucked inside. But this isn’t child’s play. Lenocker has the doll, which is just about the size of a premature infant, hooked up to a host of medical tubes. Then she tells the students in shocking detail what happens to babies--before and after they are born--whose mothers drink or do drugs while pregnant. It is not a pretty picture.

Lenocker’s efforts, and those of others trying to draw attention to drug babies, are noteworthy, but they are just a small part of what is needed to begin to respond to the growing problem of preventing and dealing with “drug babies.” A recent survey indicates that 2% of the 4,000 babies born each month in Orange County have been exposed to cocaine, PCP or other illegal drugs during gestation. That rate is lower than in many other areas, but there is no cause for complacency. As one obstetrician said, there are nearly enough drug-exposed babies born in Orange County every week to fill a classroom. Depending on their exposure, these babies can suffer from addiction, birth defects or hyperactivity that portend behavioral and learning problems throughout their lives.

Local health professionals are concerned about another finding indicated by the survey--that medical personnel routinely fail to identify more than half the newborns who would test positive for drugs. That means many babies, and mothers, may go without the help they need.

Currently, there are three programs in Orange County that serve drug-affected children. They are Buena Park’s Speech and Language Development Center, a school that provides special education for neurologically impaired children; Project HOPE (High-risk Outcome of Perinatal Exposure), a UCI clinic that assesses drug babies; and Project PATIENCE (Parent, Alternative, Training, Intervention, Evaluation, Nurturing, Child, Education), run by the Orange County Health Care Agency. But these three programs combined serve only 450 children a year--fewer than half the number of babies born annually in Orange County to drug-using mothers. Much more needs to be done to address these children’s needs and to help their mothers get off drugs.

Project PATIENCE in Garden Grove is the newest. It now serves about 40 mothers and children, but will expand and move to Santa Ana in July. The project, which is financed by federal grants, was created for mothers who were dropping out of drug treatment programs because of a lack of child care. Mothers ordered there by the courts after their babies tested positive for drugs must test negative for drugs twice a week in order to continue to get drug counseling for themselves and help for their babies.

But as excellent as this program is, it focuses on trying to clean up a mess after the damage has been done. More ways are needed to reach women before and during pregnancy. What help is there for a woman who, after discovering she is pregnant, wants help getting off drugs? Not much, according to the March of Dimes, especially if she requires residential treatment. That means many moms will continue endangering their babies throughout pregnancy. The dearth of prenatal care in Orange County--care that could help educate mothers and identify problems--doesn’t help matters.

Unfortunately, most of the 80 or so drug babies born each month in Orange County will not have the advantage of special programs addressing their needs. That will be costly not only to them, but also to society in years to come.