THE DRUG CULTURE'S VICTIMS IN THE NURSERY

His efforts to help "crack babies" and other infants born with serious
health problems from prenatal exposure to drugs bring statewide
recognition for Dr. Mark Arner of Roanoke.

Roanoke's War on drugs is being waged not only on the streets but also
in Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital's obstetrics-gynecology clinic,
its delivery room and its nursery for newborns.

Sometimes it seems a losing battle -- not only in terms of
drug-related crimes on the streets but also in the increasing numbers
of women, pregnant and with serious drug addictions, who come off the
streets to the hospital.

On the OB-GYN front, Dr. Mark C. Arner was recently recognized by the
Virginia Health Care Foundation for creating programs to help those
mostly low-income women and their unborn infants. The foundation
presented Arner with one of its "Unsung Hero" awards for 1999. But the
award, as the physician is quick to say, actually honors many in
Roanoke who have worked through organizations such as Blue Ridge
Community Services' Project Link to educate women about health risks
and to convince drug abusers to seek counseling and medical services.

It is not an easy sell. Many of the women are ashamed and fearful of
admitting their addiction. They are afraid of being arrested and
charged with using, even selling, illegal drugs, or charged with child
abuse. Many, sadly, are willing to risk seriously injuring, possibly
even killing, their babies in the womb rather than expose their habits
by seeking prenatal care. Nationwide, thousands of infants each year
are born critically ill as the result of mothers' prenatal abuse of
alcohol and illegal drugs such as crack cocaine.

As Arner acknowledges, programs such as those at Community Hospital
are not the solution to the growing drug problem. The solution is
prevention -- guiding women, even before they reach child-bearing age,
away from drug abuse through education and intervention. Often, for
instance, they suffer from unhealed wounds of sexual abuse or cruelty
inflicted upon them as children. Often, too, they were introduced to
drugs by the men who impregnated and then abandoned them.

Programs such as those at Community may not be the solution, but they
are part of it, essential for the health and the quality of life
yet-to-be for both mother and child. Arner and others in Roanoke who
are attempting to intervene on behalf of those victims of the drug
culture are, indeed, heroes.