Approximately 10 million people in the US have tried crystal meth, a form of methamphetamine, at least once, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse Research Report: Methamphetamine Abuse and Addiction. According to data from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health,19,000 pregnant women are using methamphetamine, which causes serious short-term and long-term damage to the developing fetus.
Pregnancy Complications
According to the American Pregnancy Association, methamphetamine acts like cocaine in that it speeds up the heart rate of both the mother and the baby. Methamphetamine use restricts oxygen flow to the baby.
Women who are pregnant and use methamphetamine are at greater risk of having pregnancy complications such as placental abruptia or the abrupt rupture of the placenta from the uterine wall, resulting in grave blood loss, endangering the life of both mother and baby, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse. The miscarriage rate is higher in women who use methamphetamine, according to the American Pregnancy Association.
Intrauterine Growth Retardation
Methamphetamine use during pregnancy is three times more likely to result in abnormally slow fetal growth resulting in a low birth weight baby with an abnormally small head circumference compared to no drug use, according to the March of Dimes.
Babies exposed to methamphetamine tend to be born prematurely, contributing to the small birth weight of these babies, and preterm babies are more likely to have developmental delays and learning difficulties. Methamphetamine addicted newborns experience withdrawal symptoms, including muscle tremors or spasms, difficulty sleeping and feeding, according to the American Pregnancy Association.
Birth defects
Magnetic resonance imaging brain scans of infants exposed to methamphetamine during pregnancy reveal brain abnormalities that are more severe than those associated with alcohol abuse during pregnancy, according to a study by Dr. Elizabeth R. Sowell and colleagues reported in the March 17, 2010, issue of "The Journal of Neuroscience." Because methamphetamine abusers often also abuse alcohol, previous studies which compared abusers to non-abusers could not clearly determine which effects were due to only methamphetamine abuse and not both. The Sowell study showed more severe brain defects in children due to an additive effect of abusing methamphetamine.
According to the March of Dimes, some babies exposed to methamphetamine had heart defects and a cleft lip or palate, but additional studies are needed to clearly establish how methamphetamine causes these defects.
Mice who were exposed to only one dose of methamphetamine had detectable brain damage and long term nervous system defects including problems with motor coordination, according to the results of a study published by Dr. Peter Wells and colleagues in the August 1, 2005, issue of "Free Radical Biology and Medicine," as reported in the website "Science Daily." Methamphetamine stimulates the production of dangerous free radicals which damage DNA. Fetal cells appear to be especially vulnerable to the effect of free radicals because they haven't fully developed systems to neutralize free radicals.
References
- March of Dimes: Illicit drug use during pregnancy
- National Institute of Drug Abuse Research Report: Methamphetamine Abuse and Addiction
- American Pregnancy Association: Using Illegal Street Drugs During Pregnancy
- "Journal of Neuroscience"; Differentiating Prenatal Exposure to Methamphetamine and Alcohol versus Alcohol and Not Methamphetamine using Tensor-Based Brain Morphometry and Discriminant Analysis; Elizabeth R. Sowell et al. March 17, 2010
- "Science Daily": One Hit Of Crystal Meth Causes Birth Defects, Affects Fetuses At All Stages Of Development
