DRUG ADDICTION
Bauman, P. (1996) The Development of Children of Drug Addicts. (internet) Available from: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a785622378~db=all (date accessed: 27th October 2008)
Case Study:
A study compared 70 methadone-maintained mothers (MM) and their 70 preschool-age children to a matched control group of 70 non-drug-addicted mothers (NDA) and their 70 preschool-age children on mothers' personalities, intelligence levels, and parenting attitudes and behavior; and on children's behavior and intelligence and developmental levels. Findings showed that in comparison to the control group, MM mothers performed less adaptively on measures of intelligence, personality, and parenting behavior. Their scores on the parenting attitude measures reflected authoritarian childrearing beliefs. Children of MM mothers performed more poorly than children of NDA mothers on measures of intelligence and socially adaptive behavior. In a comparison of children of MM mothers who experienced withdrawal from drugs at birth to children of MM mothers who were not born addicted to drugs, results revealed a tendency for withdrawal children to have developmental delays, lower IQ scores, and lower heights and weights.
News article
Mail Online (29th October 2008)
Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-564097/Babies-born-drug-addict-mothers-DOUBLED-years.html
Babies born to drug addict mothers have almost DOUBLED in last five years
The number of babies born to drug addicted mothers has almost doubled in the last five years, it has been revealed.
Last year there were 1,970 women who were addicted to drugs at the time of the birth, compared to 1,057 back in 2003.
Of those 1,970 women with a drug dependency, 1,211 babies were born with their mother's addiction as the habit was passed on whilst the baby was still in the womb.
It means that every day five drug addict mums give birth to a baby and of those births three babies will suffer the withdrawal symptoms of their mother's addiction.
The symptoms associated with babies who are addicted to drugs are a loud, high-pitched crying, sweating and stomach upsets.
These babies often need specialised care in hospital before they are allowed home and on occasions are taken from their mothers and placed in care.
Using the studies above, consider the following questions;
• What is the difference between the two examples? What side of the debate are they leaning towards?
• Why do the results show that drug users children are disadvantaged than that of non-drug-addicted mothers?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
i believe that thoes born to a drug addict mother have been born with a disadvantage as they did not even get the choice to choose wheter to get into that area (drugs), the decision was made even before they entered the world. the do not even the same chance at life as those with non addicted mothers.
tis is from nurture as the mothers job was to nuture their children in their womb, but instead their selfish behaviour came over them, and the drugs were put infront of mothering. the nurture of the other caused the child to have this addiction. however it could also be argued tha it is nature as the beby was born with an addiction, however this was due to the mothers bad nurturing.
Ashleigh 10C
The drug addicted babies seem to have nurture effecting them. The way they are raised, and how they were born. These affected the childs' performance and how they acted, compared to non addicted babies and mothers, was a lower standard.
This means that if we found a Drug Addicted Child and Non Addicted Child, and compared them, it is more likely that the unaffected child will do better than the affected child.
Ben
10R
I'm not even quite sure what the second article is supposed to prove, all it shows is that if you're born to a mother who does drugs while you're in the womb, you get addicted to them - which has already been scientifically proven.
As for the first article...My opinion here is that if you're raising your kids while on methadone at the same time, you aren't going to be a good mother who encourages her kids to learn and teaches them things. Ergo, it's not a nature thing.
Furthermore, unless they started the drugs BEFORE their kids were born, there is no natural link between the mother's intellect and the kid's intellect. If there is, then it's a nature thing (being exposed to drugs while in the womb). Duncan will argue the point that since you are still in the womb, this constitutes nature...but I disagree. Nature is your genetics, IMHO.
Cameron
10H
Post a Comment