BORN ADDICTS

THE more painkillers a woman gets during labour, the more likely her child
is to abuse drugs later in life.

Karin Nyberg of the University of Gothenburg and her colleagues looked at
medication given to the mothers of 69 adult drug abusers and 33 of their
siblings who did not abuse drugs. They found that 23 per cent of the drug
abusers were exposed to multiple doses of opiates or barbiturates in the
hours before birth, compared with only 3 per cent of their siblings without
drug problems (Epidemiology, vol 11, p 715). If the mothers received three
or more doses, their child was nearly five times as likely to abuse drugs.

The researchers don't know exactly how a short exposure to drugs could
produce such long-term effects, but some rat studies have shown that
exposure to a drug in the womb can change an animal's reaction to it later on.