The Interfaces of Perinatal Addiction Ira J ChasnofT In the last few years, problems associated with drug use in pregnancy have become endemic. As cocaine has become the drug of choice for millions of Americans, including pregnant women, as AIDS has become more commonly recognized in women and infants, and as legal cases have begun to raise the question of fetal abuse, no professional group has come forward to serve as advocate for this special population of substance abusers. Meanwhile, however, physicians, nurses, social service agencies and public health officials have all been faced with...

With the emergence of the biological sciences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some explanations of congenital malformations with a basis in scientific fact were formulated. It was not, however, until the thalidomide tragedy in 1961 that the necessity for further study of the effects of environmental factors on congenital malformations was recognized. By the early 1970s concentrated efforts had begun to be directed toward evaluating the effects on the unborn child of mood-altering drugs taken during pregnancy. Over the past decade, research and treatment programs have led to the...