Helping Mothers ‘Crack’ the Cycle : Health: A Missouri program called Team for Infants Endangered by Substance Abuse works to keep families drug-free.

Treona Murphy lay on her bed sobbing, weighing her need for crack cocaine against the certainty that if she gave in, she’d lose her children to the state.

“You care, but when you got the drug in you, you say, ‘God will take care of it.’ That night, I thought about my life. I thought about what I was taking away from them,” she said.

The next morning, Murphy enrolled in a program that works to keep together families with infants born addicted to crack, a crystallized form of cocaine.

The Team for Infants Endangered by Substance Abuse, or TIES program, helps mothers battle their drug problems through inpatient and outpatient treatment and provides postpartum care for their babies.

The program, nearly a year old, is operated by eight local agencies and hospitals and includes intensive home intervention for families enduring hardships, such as poverty, abuse and poor education. It receives $450,000 annually through a federal grant and $250,000 in local money.

“The problems these women encounter are not simply related to drug use,” TIES coordinator Oneta Templeton McMann said. “There is pervasive poverty from which they feel they cannot escape. They all are polydrug users. But their drug use is one of a myriad of things they have to deal with.”

Murphy, 26, smoked crack heavily during all three of her pregnancies. Her first two children had no traces of the drug in their bloodstreams, although her second child was premature and weighed only 3 pounds.

When Laurice LeShawn was born eight months ago, doctors discovered crack in her bloodstream, and Murphy was told to choose: Get help or have the county take the children.

McMann said all 24 mothers in the program love their children and want to be able to care for them, “but their abilities are blunted by their drug use.”

In addition to helping mothers negotiate everyday life, caseworkers show them how to care for their babies.

“These babies have a very high-pitched cry and are difficult to comfort,” McMann said. Some show developmental problems, she said.

Rachelle Tyler, a pediatrician at the UCLA, estimates that about a million crack-exposed babies are born each year in the United States.

Recent studies at UC San Diego indicate that up to 40% of “crack babies” suffer irreversible brain damage.

Despite Murphy’s daily drug use and poor nutrition during pregnancy, her daughter, Laurice, is basically healthy.

Murphy says she entered treatment to satisfy her family and counselor--not herself.

“I’ve grown some since. Can’t nobody stay clean for nobody. You got to do it for yourself,” she said.

Murphy completed treatment over the summer at a center where she and Laurice lived for three months. Her other daughters have been staying with relatives.

But Murphy is fearful of the future.

Although TIES is a partial panacea, it leaves many gaps. Some mothers in the program live in shelters. Two have no home.

Pat Brown, a juvenile court liaison for the Jackson County Division of Family Services, says that although TIES is a flicker of hope, she remains discouraged.

“What I’m finding is the mom gets into treatment and the programs are terrific. They look like they’re well on their way to making a life for themselves drug-free and then they slip back,” she said.

For Murphy, success remains distant.

“It’s rough living life on life’s terms,” she says. “I’ll be an addict until I die.”