THE CRACK KID MYTH

More than 30 states have filed charges against women for taking illegal
drugs during pregnancy.

In 1997, for instance, South Carolina's Supreme Court ruled that women who
use drugs during pregnancy can be prosecuted for child abuse.

The vast majority of women targeted under this policy are crack cocaine
users.

But a new study conducted at the University of Florida suggests the laws are
as misguided as they are harsh. Children born to cocaine-addicted mothers
are no more likely than other kids from similar backgrounds to have
significant behavioral problems during their first three years.

Psychologist Fonda Davis Eyler and pediatrician Marylou Behnke studied 300
children from poor families with similar racial backgrounds. Half of the
kids had been exposed to cocaine in the womb, half had not. The researchers
asked the parents or guardians to answer detailed questions about their
children's behavior and temperament. There were no significant differences
between the two groups, although both sets of children showed more
behavioral problems than average - a finding that Eyler and Behnke attribute
to poverty and bad living conditions. "There's not a strong effect of
cocaine on misconduct or behavior problems in these children," says Eyler.
"We can have a lot more hope about their future."

Still, she and Behnke agree that questionaires completed by caretakers or
family members may give subjective results.

Psychologist Barbara Strupp of Cornell hoped to avoid such ambiguities with
a laboratory test. She injected rats with cocaine during pregnancy and then
studied their offspring.

The rat young displayed no memory deficits or social abnormalities, although
they did have difficulty staying attentive to tasks when distracted. "In the
early 1990s, major magazines ran cover stories on crack kids, but these
reports were not based on scientific evidence. Despite popular belief that
there are lasting and devastating effects of prenatal cocaine exposure, that
just hasn't been the case," Strupp says.