Studies of prenatal cocaine exposure: Assessing the influence of extraneous variables

Using data from a longitudinal study of prenatal cocaine exposure, we demon strate that women who use cocaine during pregnancy differ in demographic, s ubstance use, and environmental characteristics from women who do not use c ocaine. Each of these characteristics affects the child's development indep endent of cocaine exposure, and it is; not appropriate to draw conclusions regarding the effects of cocaine use per se without taking into considerati on the ways in which women who use cocaine differ from women who do not use . WE? present statistical examples where the effect of prenatal cocaine use was not significant after control for extraneous variables and examples wh ere the effects remained significant after control. Thus, if is necessary t o identify which variables are extraneous variables and to explore the effe cts of these variables on the findings. Failure to control for these variab les can lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding the effects of prenatal co caine exposure.