Abstract
The following paper analyzes three articles that deal with the effect of addicted mothers on infant development. The type of addiction that the paper concentrates on includes alcohol abuse, use of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. Drug use during pregnancy has been on the higher rise as more young mothers engage in drug and alcohol abuse. Mothers who use non-prescribed when pregnant never realizes the dangers they expose their newborn babies to until the child is born and attains the age of five years. The paper will identify various problems analyzed in the selected articles and relate them to the hypotheses. The outcomes of each research will be analyzed to determine whether the hypothesis was achieved. In addition, the paper will give a conclusion of all the findings and provide a recommendation for future analysis.
Keywords: Addiction, Drug use, maternal care, Child development, prenatal care, maternal care, quantitative research
Introduction
Drug addicted mothers pose greater risks to developing infants. Drugs easily cross the placenta membrane into the developing fetal body. Drugs are also present in the maternal milk canals and can easily be absorbed by the child while feeding. The following argument helped in developing the hypotheses for this paper.
Research problem
Addicted mothers cause major problems to developing infants and growing babies. The problem leads to higher mortality death rates and development of babies with disorders. Drug use and addiction is a major debate in United States and all other countries worldwide. The problem has never been solved even with the effort of the federal government to introduce policies and rules to threaten drug users.
Search process
The sources of literature used on this research were derived from online journals through the normal Google Search process. The main sources of information are NCBI, Public Health Nursing (PHN) and JOGNN. The articles were selected because they contained the required information that would be necessary answering the hypotheses.
Alternative Hypotheses
HA: As a result of drug and substance abuse on maternal care mother, the developing infant suffers major negative outcomes.
Body
Article I
Harrison, P. A., Godecker, A., & Sidebottom, A. (2012). Validity of the Prenatal Risk Overview
for Detecting Drug Use Disorders in Pregnancy. Public Health Nursing, 29(6), 563-573.
Approximately 4.4 percent of adult pregnant women in United States used illicit drugs in 2010. This issue brought more concerns to Harrison, Godcker & Sidebottom because they already understood dangers posed to developing infants due to use of illicit drugs by pregnant mothers. The three decided to conduct a research to investigate the validity of prenatal risk overview for detecting drug use disorders in pregnancy. The following article establishes a baseline for determining how valid Prenatal Risk Ocerview (PRO) drug use questions are when compare to structured interview among maternal adult women. The research outcomes from this article would help public health nursing seek methods of minimizing illicit drug use among adult pregnant women and inform appropriate clinical responses using PRO technique (Harrison, Godcker & Sidebottom, 2012).
The article used a structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) to identify risks associated with illicit drug use among adult pregnant women. Alcohol use was the main drug that the research validated that was tested against the structured diagnostic interview. Prenatal patients admitted between 2007 and 2010 at three participating care centers formed the respondent. A total of 1,367 women participated in the study. Out of 1,367 women, 1,274 consented while 745 completed the research. The risks identified were classified as moderate/high and high risks classified using Drug Use Disorder Diagnosis. Data from PRO and patient demographics were brought together with SCID data. SPSS 19.0 software conducted statistical analysis. Additionally, Bivariate analyses (ANOVA and Pearson’s X2) tests were used to compare research variables (Harrison, Godcker & Sidebottom, 2012).
The outcomes from the study agree with the above stated hypotheses. Almost a third of participants who responded to the PRO reported drug use during the 12 months pre-pregnancy awareness. 11 percent of the participants reported pre-pregnancy awareness. Additionally, the study outcomes revealed that 7 percent of participants met SCID diagnostic criteria for illicit drug use. Moreover, Drug Use Disorder sensitivity rates for PRO were 88.5 percent for Moderate/high and 87.3 percent for High risk classifications (Harrison, Godcker & Sidebottom, 2012).
The results achieved from this article revealed that adult pregnant women who use illicit drugs 12 months before and after pregnancy put the lives of their children in great danger. The use of PRO’s direct inquiries on drug use frequency did not match with other prenatal instruments used before. The use of Pro technique faced limitations because unlike other clinical methods, the process could not establish symptoms, unusual patterns, and consequences of drug use among the target groups. However, PRO use is valid in informing decisions about the appropriate clinical responses that the public health nursing could use to identify drug use among pregnant women.
Article II
Shieh, C. & Kravitz, M. (2006). Severity of Drug Use, Initiation of Prenatal Care, And Maternal-
Fetal Attachment in Pregnant Marijuana and Cocaine/Heroin Users. JOGNN Clinical Research, 34(4), 499-508.
Shieh and Kravitz’s study helped test my hypotheses comparing the severity of drug use, initiation of prenatal care, and maternal-fetal attachment between pregnant cocaine/heroin and marijuana users. The article claims that prenatal illicit drug addiction during cause significant problems and poses greater risks to the life of developing infant. Some of the observed negative effects include maternal and infant respiratory, neurologic problems, preterm labor, motor development, and low birth weight among others. Shieh and Kravitz (2006) argued that the health of the developing infant depends on the mother’s behavior. Additionally, the article investigates how pregnant women using illicit drugs accomplish prenatal developmental tasks of infants. The following article plays a major role in the field of nursing by comparing the effects of different illicit drugs when used by pregnant women.
A cross-sectional design was used to evaluate drug use among pregnant women. The behaviors, complications and maternal-fetal attachment problems were investigated using this design. The availability of study participants and research questions assisted in the selection of a convenience sample. The research was conducted in a prenatal clinic of a medical center in the Northeast of the United States. Pregnant women using cocaine, heroin and marijuana formed the respondent. 33 mothers took place in the study. 19 marijuana, 4 heroin, and 17 cocaine users were recruited from the center to take part in the study. Each study group answered a questionnaire related to the reason why persons used these drugs and the main influence they have on using drugs. The Severity of Drug Use Questionnaire that contained 11 questions was administered to each person. The main assessment factors investigated were dependence on drug, withdrawal issues, medical, interpersonal issues, and legal issues.
Outcomes from questionnaires indicated high relationship between severity of drug use to initiation of prenatal care and maternal-fetal attachment. Pregnant cocaine and heroin users reported high drug severity scores and initiated pre-natal care later than marijuana users. The study outcomes also revealed that heroine and cocaine users have more deteriorating effects compared to marijuana users when it came to drug tolerance and dependence. Moreover, more than a third of cocaine/heroine using pregnant women consumed other illicit drugs like alcohol and cigarettes. Both groups showed major challenges to fetal development. 10 percent of the target population experienced pre-mature labor while 30 percent gave birth to under-weight babies. Additionally, there was lack of significant difference in maternal-fetal attachment and drug use for marijuana and cocaine/heroine users.
The researchers called upon the Department of Health care to develop interventions for helping cocaine/heroine users start earlier prenatal care and reduce drug use in order to protect the life of the developing fetus. The study was limited to small convenience sample that increased self-selection bias and interfered with the validity of data collected. In addition, grouping heroine users with cocaine users made it hard to establish differences between behaviors of the two groups. The article recommended future researchers to include nonusers in their studies in order examine between-group and within-group differences.
Article III
Kassada, D. S., Marcon, S.S., Pagliarini, M.A. & Rossi, M.R. (2013). Prevalence of drug abuse
among Pregnant women. Acta Paul Inform, 26(5), 467-471
Kassada et al. (2013) carried out research that aimed at determining the prevalence of drug abuse among pregnant women. The authors were professional nurses who understood elements of maternal-child nursing. The main drugs abused by pregnant women according to the research are cocaine and alcohol. Nursing professionals experience many challenges detecting drug consumption among pregnant women during pregnancy. The article calls for healthcare professionals to address the issue and define mitigation measures to prevent more cases in the future (Kassada et al., 2013).
The research used quantitative and qualitative research designs whereby a cross-sectional study was carried out. 394 pregnant women formed the respondent assisted by 25 nurse professionals. The research took place in the city of Maringa, North West region of Parana State. Data collection took seven months, between January and July 2012. Drug abuse during pregnancy formed the dependent variables while independent variables were years, age, race, pregnancy term, number of children, and family income. The Excel software was used to analyze data into tables and charts. Statistical Analysis System (SAS) helped in analyzing multivariate logistic regression. Significance intervals were set at 5% and confidence interval at 95% (Kassada et al., 2013).
The outcome of the research showed that 72 women (18.28%) of the women used drugs during pregnancy. The mean average age of pregnant women was 25 years. From the 72 women, 63.89% were between ages of 19 and 30 years. The overall results indicated that drug use during pregnancy affects the development of the fetus. In addition, the social and emotional effects of women during pregnancy affect fetal development. Predominance of young mixed-race pregnant mothers with low levels of income and low literacy demonstrate a high prevalence for drug use (Kassada et al., 2013).
Conclusion
As a result of drug use and substance abuse on maternal care mother, the developing infant suffers major negative outcomes. The analysis of three articles shows that the alternative hypotheses were true. Hence, my prediction was correct. The results from these articles prove that maternal drug use affects infant development, and the impact also affects the person up to adulthood. Prevention was proposed as the best therapy for this problem. People also need to be careful not to expose innocent lives into unnecessary sufferings.
References
Harrison, P. A., Godecker, A., & Sidebottom, A. (2012). Validity of the Prenatal Risk Overview
for Detecting Drug Use Disorders in Pregnancy. Public Health Nursing, 29(6), 563-573.
Kassada, D. S., Marcon, S.S., Pagliarini, M.A. & Rossi, M.R. (2013). Prevalence of drug abuse
among pregnant women. Acta Paul Enferm, 26(5), 467-471.
Shieh, C. & Kravitz, M. (2006). Severity of Drug Use, Initiation of Prenatal Care, And Maternal-
Fetal Attachment in Pregnant Marijuana and Cocaine/Heroin Users. JOGNN Clinical Research, 34(4), 499-508.
