Drug Abuse

Drug addiction during pregnancy is becoming more common these days. Due to lifestyle changes & stress woman tend to become addicted to substances which are harmful to their health.

Woman who use drug suffer from complaints of low self esteem, loss of self confidence, feels lonely & isolated from the world or they have been sexually abused by the age of 16 or have family history of parents being abused of alcohol or drugs. Woman tends to become addicted quickly to crack cocaine. The others being marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, heroine etc.

Drug addiction imposes serious health problems both on mother & baby. When pregnant woman uses drug then the drug can enter the baby’s blood stream from placenta.

There are many harmful effects of drug abuse on mother, they are ;

High BP
Low self esteem
Low weight gain
Preterm Labor
STD
HIV/AIDS
Premature Labor
Depression
Anemia
Skin infection

Women are usually afraid to take treatment as they fear of violence from their partners. So, family & friends should take initiative & supports the woman & help her come out from the darkness of drug abuse.

It is very difficult to treat drug addiction but if the drug addict woman undertakes right kind of treatment then she can get better. There are many specialized drug RX centre programs for such cases. During pregnancy, urine test called chromatography can be done to detect presence of many drug such as cocaine, marijuana etc.

Using illegal drugs during pregnancy imposes risk on unborn child as well. The risk of baby includes the following ;

HIV / AIDS
Retarded Growth
Birth defects
Low birth weight baby
Premature baby
Leaning disabilities
Sudden infant death syndrome
Increased risk of infection
Learning Problems
Uncontrollable trembling.

During pregnancy the woman should take steps to overcome her drug addiction at least for the well being of unborn child. Once the baby takes 1st breath after coming out then starts painful process of drug withdrawal as the blood connection of child with mother ends. So this puts baby’s organs in stress.

It has been found that if a mother stops taking drugs before the 1st trimester has ended then there are chances that she will deliver a healthy baby.

Lastly pregnancy is a very beautiful phase which comes in every woman’s life you should enjoy it & not struggle with it & make it more painful & dangerous both for mother & child.

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