Perinatal Outcome of Infants Exposed to Cocaine and/or Heroin In Utero

Abstract
• While cocaine is now used much more frequently than heroin by women of childbearing age, we have found that a significant number of mothers have abused both drugs during their pregnancy. We studied 86 infants who were born to women with a history of cocaine and/or heroin use during pregnancy. The newborns were observed over a 5-day hospital period using a standardized abstinence scoring system and urine drug screening of both mother and infant. Of these, 35 had maternal and/or newborn urine test results that were positive for cocaine only (cocaine group), 14 that were positive for heroin only (heroin group), 17 that were positive for both cocaine and heroin (cocaine/heroin group), and 20 that were negative for both, although the mothers admitted to cocaine use during their pregnancy (cocaine history group). In approximately half of the mother/infant pairs, the

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