The Crack Baby Panic

"The Crack Baby Panic"

After reading this article and speaking with friends and family about this topic, I have realized that this issue is a true epidemic in our nation. It has been out lined previously by many others, first including the doctors and nurses that deal with this matter first hand. I am sure that Enid Logan spent a countless number of hours finding true and unbiased information about this issue; because in my research alone I came across many opinions, and angles. The main issue is that crack cocaine became one of the most popular drugs in the 1980's and with any drug there also comes consequences in life styles, which is followed by the drug directly affecting others around the user.

Crack cocaine is statistically proven to take the life of its user, and direct the user's attention solely on the drug. Logan's article focused on the topic of crack addicted mothers, and its effect on their fetuses/children. As explained in the article by Logan, this drug strips a mother of her maternal instinct. "This drug brings children only fit to be loved by their mother into this world while forcing the mother to forget her maternal instinct." (Logan) It is also statistically proven that those mothers not only pass on a higher potential for addiction for their child, but that their addiction also forces an unforgiving lifestyle on their children.

Babies born by crack addicted mothers often become socially unfit by the lifestyle they are born into. Statistically most children born into a drug addicted family are four times as likely to do drugs, and nine times as likely to sell them. Often these children are subject to other closely related classifications including criminal behavior, non-marital sexuality, and aberrant maternal behavior. Often these children are only looking for their parent's approval and affection. Sadly these children are condemned to a life of neglecting parents.

Crack-babies are classified as being socially problematic based on statistics and the study of their behavior. Mostly the doctors and psychiatrists that take care of these patients document their behaviors, though it is safe to say in our society that the family members of the subjects in question are more likely to have more accurate information.

Doctors that deliver these children, diagnose these babies by their immediate behavior after birth. Crack babies are subject to "trembling until their limbs are raw," (Logan) as well as a number of other symptoms. Logan also goes on to say that many doctors resent giving these newborns back to their mother because they know the neglect that the child is doomed to suffer.

As far as obtaining accurate information on crack babies, we should be turning to their families and obtaining our statistical information from the ones who experience the lives of these children first hand. I have read that statistically these babies are subject to social deformities, suboptimal intelligence, uncontrollable behavior, and criminal tendencies. By personal experience these statics are not always true.

I have a friend in which I respect very much who was born a crack baby, and he never fulfilled his expected behaviors. This friend is in his fifth year of college, he owns his own consulting firm, and has never been in serious trouble. I believe that it is safe to say that though these tendencies may be common based on a child's up-bringing, I believe