METH USE LINKED TO BIRTH WOES

Research is starting to confirm what experts in addiction and child
health have suspected: Parents' methamphetamine abuse is bad for babies.

The problem is not simply this one drug, it's all drugs, according to
Dr. Kathy Masis, a family doctor and addiction treatment expert who
spoke at the Regional Methamphetamine Task Force meeting Friday in
Billings. Masis works with the Indian Health Service Billings Area
Office.

"Cigarette smoking causes more damage to babies than methamphetamine
does because so many U.S. women smoke while they're pregnant," Masis
said.

The effects that another legal drug 96 alcohol 96 has on the developing
fetus have been well documented and are publicized in campaigns to
prevent fetal alcohol syndrome. Publicity over "crack babies" born to
cocaine addicts seems to have left an impression that cocaine is bad
for babies, too.

Amazingly, health care practitioners around the country are hearing
from their pregnant patients that they think methamphetamine isn't
dangerous to babies.

"I've heard it in Montana. They92ve heard it in Southern California,"
said Masis, who recently attended a national conference on research
into methamphetamine's effects on babies. "They say, `I know alcohol
is bad, so I switched to methamphetamine.' They know about crack
babies, but they haven't heard that methamphetamine is bad."

"What we're hearing is women switching from one drug to another. The
message I want mothers to hear is: `Don't do drugs during pregnancy.
Get clean,' " Masis said.

About 20 social service and addiction treatment professionals on the
Montana-Wyoming task force listened as Masis described how
methamphetamine can harm an unborn child.

"If you're taking methamphetamine, you92re not eating. We know that.
That leads to malnutrition," she said.

Masis said people who abuse methamphetamine never use just the one
drug. They use it in combination with alcohol, marijuana, opiates, LSD
and other substances, sometimes using these other drugs to moderate
some of the effects of methamphetamine, according to addiction
counselors at the meeting.

The death of a newborn resulting from methamphetamine use has been
rarely documented, she said. It's not known how often methamphetamine
causes miscarriages, but it has been associated with miscarriages late
in pregnancy.

One great hazard of drug use during pregnancy is that the fetus
doesn't grow and the birth weight is low. Low birth weight puts the
baby at risk for a host of problems and is the No. 1 reason for
admissions to intensive care nurseries, Masis said.

Although research focuses on maternal drug use, Masis said what
fathers do also matters. Battering during pregnancy and an unsafe
environment for the mother and baby after the birth are substantial
factors in infant health.

Getting a pregnant woman into addiction treatment isn't the best
solution, Masis said. "We need to have more treatment available to mom
before she is pregnant."

In one review of research on babies born to methamphetamine-addicted
mothers, the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York
found that methamphetamine produced many of the same effects as
cocaine. Both are powerful stimulants that raise blood pressure and
the risk of stroke. Both drugs have been associated with heart
abnormalities in babies. Babies exposed to methamphetamine were
smaller, showed abnormal behavior in constant crying and jitteriness
and were at greater risk for bleeding in the brain. Other researchers
have associated cleft lip with methamphetamine exposure.

Masis said there is much that can be done to help babies affected by
prenatal methamphetamine exposure. The greatest period of brain
development is in the last three months of pregnancy and in the first
year of life, she said. There is opportunity to help drug-exposed
babies even after birth, she said.

"What we need to do is nurture them," Masis said. "Love is the most
powerful medicine and that's what these babies need."