THAT AMA STUDY ON 'CRACK BABIES'

Only days after the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a South
Carolina hospital's policy of testing pregnant women for drugs and giving
the results to police without the women's consent, the Journal of the
American Medical Association released a study suggesting that babies born
to drug-addicted mothers do not suffer any unusual developmental problems.

ACCORDING TO THE STUDY, women who use cocaine while pregnant often smoke,
drink, take other illegal drugs and live in poverty or in otherwise
unhealthy environments, all of which contribute to a child's underdevelopment.

This is not totally fresh news. In 1998 University of Florida researchers
concluded that drug-addicted infants were not more prone to birth defects,
and if there were differences between crack babies and other children, they
were subtle differences. But the scientists were cautious not to send the
message that there is no harm to babies when their mothers use narcotics.
Cocaine is known to cause premature labor and smaller babies.

It is also a fact that children often go through withdrawal from the drug
after birth, and anyone who has witnessed these babies shaking in agony
would agree no child should have to go through it, no matter if he
eventually recovers.

This most recent research on the ``crack baby myth'' has put many
children's advocacy groups in an almost celebratory mood. They believe
blaming child development problems on prenatal cocaine use alone has
unfairly stigmatized children as well as their mothers.

In an editorial accompanying the JAMA study, Dr. Wendy Chavkin of Columbia
University said the crack baby ``has become a convenient symbol for an
aggressive war on drug users because of the implication that anyone who is
selfish enough to irreparably damage a child for the sake of a quick high
deserves retribution.''

``This image, promoted by the mass media, makes it easier to advocate a
simplistic, punitive response than to address the complex causes of drug
use,'' she said.

No, this ``war on drug users'' Chavkin talks about was primarily an effort
to help children, to try to make sure as many as possible get off to a
healthy start. And just because cocaine may be no worse than alcohol or
tobacco in harming children in the womb - if that is indeed true - its use
is still to be deplored.

WHILE THIS MOST recent study may help destigmatize drug-abusing mothers and
the children they bear, babies should still be removed from abusive homes
or situations where their mothers' addiction leads to neglect. Because a
child growing up in an unhealthy environment will eventually suffer injury
that may indeed turn out to be irreparable.