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"The Epidemic That Wasn?t" ---"crack babies"

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

January 27, 2009 The Epidemic That Wasn?t By SUSAN OKIE NY Times--Pag1 Science Section BALTIMORE ? One sister is 14; the other is 9. They are a vibrant pair: the older girl is high-spirited but responsible, a solid student and a devoted helper at home; her sister loves to read and watch cooking shows, and she recently scored well above average on citywide standardized tests. There would be nothing remarkable about these two happy, normal girls if it were not for their mother?s history. Yvette H., now 38, admits that she used cocaine (along with heroin and alcohol) while she was pregnant with each girl. ?A drug addict,? she now says ruefully, ?isn?t really concerned about the baby she?s carrying.? When the use of crack cocaine became a nationwide epidemic in the 1980s and ?90s, there were widespread fears that prenatal exposure to the drug would produce a generation of severely damaged children...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).