# Long term study of doomed 80's "crack babies"- Result? Being a crack baby wasn't that big a deal **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 22, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258 "2013-07-22T22:54:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/1 "2013-07-22T22:54:44Z")
But being poor was - [‘Crack baby’ study ends with unexpected but clear result](http://articles.philly.com/2013-07-21/news/40709969_1_hallam-hurt-so-called-crack-babies-funded-study) > [@](#): > > Jaimee Drakewood hurried in from the rain, eager to get to her final appointment at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. > > Ever since her birth 23 years ago, a team of researchers has been tracking every aspect of her development - gauging her progress as an infant, measuring her IQ as a prechooler, even peering into her adolescent brain using an MRI machine. > > Now, after nearly a quarter century, the federally funded study was ending, and the question the researchers had been asking was answered. > > Did cocaine harm the long-term development of children like Jaimee, who were exposed to the drug in their mother’s womb? > > The researchers had expected the answer would be a resounding yes. But it wasn’t. Another factor would prove far more critical. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/2 "2013-07-22T23:37:43Z")
Poverty. The factor was poverty. Interesting study, but I thought I’d save time for people who don’t want to read the whole article. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/3 "2013-07-23T10:50:10Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Poverty. The factor was poverty. > > Interesting study, but I thought I’d save time for people who don’t want to read the whole article. The answer was given in the first sentence of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![JLRogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@JLRogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JLRogers)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/4 "2013-07-23T10:59:44Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > The answer was given in the first sentence of the OP. Don’t be so harsh. Rachellelogram grew up poor, so her reading comprehension isn’t what it could be. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/5 "2013-07-23T11:10:38Z")
Heh. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/6 "2013-07-23T11:25:40Z")
I’ve been hearing for years that FAS is much worse. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/7 "2013-07-23T13:58:54Z")
I wouldn’t exactly call 12 college grads out of 110 a big success. 10.9% We need a comparison of other kids from similar backgrounds that weren’t crack babies. Why weren’t the high school grads reported? That would be more informative then college grads. If we really want to compare abilities of crack babies vs other babies. > [@](#): > > The team has kept tabs on 110 of the 224 children originally in the study. Of the 110, two are dead - one shot in a bar and another in a drive-by shooting - three are in prison, six graduated from college, and six more are on track to graduate. There have been 60 children born to the 110 participants. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/8 "2013-07-23T14:05:52Z")
It is encouraging to hear that the crack babies aren’t a “lost generation”. That they are functioning in society. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/9 "2013-07-23T14:06:25Z")
The whole ‘crack baby’ thing was questioned by many at the time. But in the midst of the joint government/media effort to market crack cocaine to the masses people forgot about looking for facts. At the time claiming a new harmful effect of crack would get you on the news and a meeting with the highly placed officials. Attempting to counter that information wasn’t going to do anything for your career. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/10 "2013-07-23T14:09:08Z")
A pretty stunning portrait of life in inner city poverty. > [@](#): > > On the downside, they found that 81 percent of the children had seen someone arrested; 74 percent had heard gunshots; 35 percent had seen someone get shot; and 19 percent had seen a dead body outside - and the kids were only 7 years old at the time. Those children who reported a high exposure to violence were likelier to show signs of depression and anxiety and to have lower self-esteem. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/11 "2013-07-23T14:47:16Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I wouldn’t exactly call 12 college grads out of 110 a big success. 10.9% We need a comparison of other kids from similar backgrounds that weren’t crack babies. Why weren’t the high school grads reported? That would be more informative then college grads. If we really want to compare abilities of crack babies vs other babies. They did have controls, I think the upshot of the study referenced in the article was that there were no substantive differences in intellectual or scholastic performance between the non-crack baby controls and the “crack babies”. Performance was substandard across the board for both groups which the study attributed directly to poverty. The differences between the crack babies and non-crack babies in the demographic cohort were almost non-existent over time which flies in the face of what the doctors and researchers who initiated the longitudinal study expected. > [@](#): > > Hurt’s study enrolled only full-term babies so the possible effects of prematurity did not skew the results. The babies were then evaluated periodically, beginning at six months and then every six or 12 months on through young adulthood. Their mothers agreed to be tested for drug use throughout the study. > > The researchers consistently found no significant differences between the cocaine-exposed children and the controls. At age 4, for instance, the average IQ of the cocaine-exposed children was 79.0 and the average IQ for the nonexposed children was 81.9. Both numbers are well below the average of 90 to 109 for U.S. children in the same age group. When it came to school readiness at age 6, about 25 percent of children in each group scored in the abnormal range on tests for math and letter and word recognition. > > “We went looking for the effects of cocaine,” Hurt said. But after a time "we began to ask, ‘Was there something else going on?’ " > > While the cocaine-exposed children and a group of nonexposed controls performed about the same on tests, both groups lagged on developmental and intellectual measures compared to the norm. Hurt and her team began to think the “something else” was poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/12 "2013-07-23T16:50:48Z")
I understand why they eliminated premature infants from the study, but doing so produces its own skew on the results. Having been a crack baby may not give rise to additional crack-specific developmental problems, but it does indisputably raise the risk of being born premature and having all the developmental problems associated with prematurity. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/13 "2013-07-23T18:45:32Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > The answer was given in the first sentence of the OP. Oh shit, my eyes swiped right past that. Sorry! ---
**Author:** ![CatherineZeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/14 "2013-07-23T18:46:20Z")
Interesting. I went to elementary school with a boy who had severe emotional and developmental problems. His dad told my mom that he and his wife had adopted him and that his biological mother had been addicted to crack. I suppose there could have been a host of other issues going on though that contributed to his problems (Poverty not being one of them though. I grew up in a fairly affluent area). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/15 "2013-07-23T20:21:43Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > Interesting. I went to elementary school with a boy who had severe emotional and developmental problems. His dad told my mom that he and his wife had adopted him and that his biological mother had been addicted to crack. I suppose there could have been a host of other issues going on though that contributed to his problems (Poverty not being one of them though. I grew up in a fairly affluent area). Along the same lines, there was an episode of “Hoarders” a while back in which the hoarder had adopted a child who had been born addicted to cocaine, and this child had severe development issues (as in violent outbursts and inability to speak). I wondered at the time whether the circumstances of his birth in fact explained his disorder, and it sounds like there must have been other major problems at work. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/16 "2013-07-23T20:58:28Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > Interesting. I went to elementary school with a boy who had severe emotional and developmental problems. His dad told my mom that he and his wife had adopted him and that his biological mother had been addicted to crack. I suppose there could have been a host of other issues going on though that contributed to his problems (Poverty not being one of them though. I grew up in a fairly affluent area). I’ve met one “crack baby” in my life and he was pretty messed up developmentally too (even though he was adopted by a well-off family). But I guess it’s good that he’s an outlier. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/17 "2013-07-23T21:24:48Z")
Another thing to remember is that a lot of the mothers of these so-called “crack babies” were using a lot of other street drugs during their pregnancy (including alcohol, which absolutely will cause developmental issues). So, while it may be true that crack/cocaine use during pregnancy doesn’t seem to cause any issues, that doesn’t mean every kid labeled a crack baby is ok. eta: that seems especially important to point out when it’s a situation where someone’s mom heard it from a friend’s dad who heard it from the agency who got it from the birth mother. In a situation like that, there’s really no telling what was ingested during the pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![CatherineZeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/18 "2013-07-23T21:42:22Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Along the same lines, there was an episode of “Hoarders” a while back in which the hoarder had adopted a child who had been born addicted to cocaine, and this child had severe development issues (as in violent outbursts and inability to speak). I wondered at the time whether the circumstances of his birth in fact explained his disorder, and it sounds like there must have been other major problems at work. This kid had violent outbursts although he was able to speak normally. He was just very socially awkward (aside from his outbursts) and had extreme difficulty keeping up with what we were learning in class. He was taken out of class a lot for one on one work with a special ed teacher. I’m actually from the same area as you. The elementary school I went to in Reston had a dedicated center for kids with emotional and developmental issues. He wasn’t in the center though as his parents wished to mainstream him and their other adopted children who each had varying degrees of disabilities. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/19 "2013-07-23T21:47:41Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I wouldn’t exactly call 12 college grads out of 110 a big success. 10.9% We need a comparison of other kids from similar backgrounds that weren’t crack babies. Why weren’t the high school grads reported? That would be more informative then college grads. If we really want to compare abilities of crack babies vs other babies. You do know that nationwide, the 2010 high school dropout rate is 7.4%. 8% if you are black. Of those that graduate, 70% go on to college, 69% of black students. Of those, only 57% earn a degree, 40% of black kids (most kids in the study were black). So out of 100 black kids, 92 graduate from high school, 63 go to college, 25 graduate. (Out of 100 kids, 37 earn four year degrees. It isn’t a terribly high rate removing race from the equation) Poor black kids graduate from college at a little less than half the rate of the general African American population - and the study says that there is no difference in that rate if your mom was a crack user when she was pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258/20 "2013-07-23T22:06:36Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > The answer was given in the first sentence of the OP. I hadn’t noticed it, either. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/long-term-study-of-doomed-80s-crack-babies-result-being-a-crack-baby-wasnt-that-big-a-deal/664258.md?page=2)