Girls Whose Mothers Abuse Drugs Seven Times The Risk For Drug Abuse
Children of women who abuse drugs are more likely to abuse them too, according to a new study from Harvard Medical School. Girls of drug-addicted mothers were at seven times the average risk, and the risk increased if a mother used drugs when her child was a teenager.
Dr. Amy Yule and her colleagues controlled the study to look only at a child’s exposure to drug use, taking out other factors such as socioeconomic status, attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity, and familial risk. She had assumed children whose fathers used drugs and boys who watched their mothers used drugs would be at the same risk as girls exposed to maternal drug use and that it would not matter what age a child was. She was correct in that all groups were at an increased risk compared to children whose parents did not abuse drugs.
However, girls exposed to maternal drug use were at much greater risk than the other groups as were children exposed as teenagers.
This study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.
