Family Functioning in Families with Alcohol and Other Drug Addiction

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This journal entry highlighted the link between drug abuse and mental illness. Understanding the cause and effect relationship between drug abuse and mental illness can provide us important insights on how to properly treat both. The article helped shed light on the existence of the relationship. However, more research must be done to work out ways to use the cause and effect nature of the two to treat each problem more successfully.

Sources

Volkow, N. D. (2001). Drug abuse and mental illness: Progress in understanding comorbidity. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 158(8), 1181-3. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/docview/220463775?accountid=14270

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Maternal and perinatal outcome with drug abuse in pregnancy

This final journal article was referred to as, “Maternal and perinatal outcome with drug abuse in pregnancy.” It was written by R. B. P. Thangappah and published in the twentieth volume of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the maternal and neonatal outcome in women abusing drugs.

The case files of thirty-five drug addicted mothers who gave birth between January of 1994 and August of 1997 were reviewed and used for this study. For the purpose of the study, a woman was placed in the drug user category if she used heroine, methadone, cocaine, amphetamine or other addictive drugs at any point in time during her pregnancy. For each individual case a matched control was used to gage results. Controls were based on matching parity, age, socio-economic status and ethnicity. Thirty-four of the women were white and one woman was Afro-Caribbean. The women had an average age of 25.8 years of age. All of the cases came from low income backgrounds

Of the allotted time, January of 1994 to August of 1997, 7495 births occurred at Birch Hill Hospital in Rochdale, United Kingdom. Of those 7495 births, thirty-five of the mothers were complicated by maternal drug abuse. Of these thirty-five, fourteen showed poor results in birth. There were five miscarried babied, two stillborn babies, six premature babies and one baby with intrauterine growth restriction. This means that forty percent of the births came with complications for the babies. For the mothers, twenty-four had complications. This is sixty-eight point five percent of the mothers. Three showed serum hepatitis, one showed tuberculosis, two had respiratory arrest, and nine showed major psychiatric illness. In addition, severe asthma and eczema was seen in nine patients. Overall, the drug using mothers showed significantly higher rates of anemia, pre-eclampsia, preterm labor, abruptio placenta and intrauterine growth restriction.

The drug abusing mothers tended to book late for antenatal care. Their average visit was twenty-two weeks. On the flip side, the control group mothers’ average visit was around fourteen weeks. One women in the drug using group was screened for the first time during labor. Twenty-seven of the drug using women went for hepatitis screening and three of them tested positive. As for the babies, the mean birthweight of the drug using mothers group was 2954 grams. The mean birthweight of the control group was 3237 g. This difference was not statistically significant nor was the average head circumference or body length. Twenty-six babies were admitted into the neonatal unit and fifteen of babies showed symptoms of withdrawal.

While the issue of drug use in pregnancy has improved since this study was done, it is still important that women who are pregnant, or may become pregnant are fully aware of the complications that drug use cause. A study like this is why social services need protocol to handle these situations. There should be discharge procedure and follow-up protocol that can ensure the health of the mother and the child. Recognition of these problems will help us to better deal with them and hopefully prevent them in the future.

Sources

Thangappah, R. B. P. (2000). Maternal and perinatal outcome with drug abuse in pregnancy. Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, 20(6), 597-600. doi:10.1080/01443610020001422

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