EVIDENCE OF GESTATIONAL HEROIN OR NICOTINE EXPOSURE BY ANALYSIS OF FETAL HAIR

Failure to identify tobacco- or heroin-exposed neonates is extensive o wing to the limitations of current methods used to verify maternal dru g use. Maternal self-reported drug history has been shown to be unreli able: many women who deny use during pregnancy exhibit drug metabolite s in their urine. Maternal systematic urinalysis is hampered by the sh ort elimination half-life of the drugs. This test is not suitable for validation of survey data since the quantification of drugs in urine o nly reflects exposure during the preceding 1-3 days and does not neces sarily indicate the frequency in subjects who might deliberately absta in for several days before biomedical screenings. The same disadvantag es are noted with the analysis of babies' meconium, or of the amniotic fluids which are only a qualitative test at the moment of delivery. H air analysis remedies the disadvantages of these currently available m ethods by exhibiting a wide window of detection and may provide inform ation concerning the severity of gestational exposure. Hair samples we re collected at time of delivery from 40 and 9 neonates whose mothers were known, by self-report, to be smokers and heroin users during the prenatal period, respectively. Hair was decontaminated in dichlorometh ane (37 degrees C, 15 min) and homogenizated in NaOH (1 M, 10 min, 90 degrees C). Nicotine and opiates were extracted in diethylether at pH 14, and in chloroform/isopropanol/n-heptane (50:17:33 v/v) at pH 9.2, respectively. After separation on a BP-5 capillary column, drugs were identified and quantified by GC/MS using selected ion monitoring. The ranges of measured concentrations were 0.15-11.80 and 0.61-3.47 ng/mg for nicotine and morphine, respectively. It was possible to establish a significant correlation between the nicotine levels in the hair of t he neonates and in the hair of their respective mothers, with a correl ation coefficient of 0.83. These findings suggest the possibility of m onitoring the transfer of maternal nicotine and heroin through the pla centa by measuring drug concentration in neonatal hair.