NEONATAL NEUROBEHAVIORAL OUTCOME FOLLOWING PRENATAL EXPOSURE TO COCAINE

This substudy of a longitudinal prospective study was designed to asse ss neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioral performance in newborn infan ts who were maternally exposed to cocaine and other drugs of abuse or the other drugs without cocaine. Sample selection procedures were desi gned to permit statistical control for marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco . Cocaine was assessed with both self-report and radioimmunoassay of h air. One hundred ninety-one newborns with a mean age of 43 h were asse ssed for 35 to 40 min on tests of reflexes, activity level, head-turni ng preference, tremors, nonnutritive sucking, habituation, and stale. The testers were blinded to the baby's drug exposure. Cocaine-exposed newborns were developmentally at risk on the tests administered compar ed to infants exposed to the other three drugs alone or in some combin ation. A dose-response effect was found: higher amounts of cocaine wer e associated with higher neurobehavioral risk scores. Copyright (C) 19 96 Elsevier Science Inc.