FCYU-Feature Story

The Myth of the
'Crack Baby'
Doctors and the media were wrong in thinking we'd never succeed.

Some of us went into foster care because our mothers used crack while they were pregnant with us. We were what the television and newspapers called "crack babies." They labeled those of us exposed to crack in the womb as a new "biological underclass" and a "lost generation."

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, images of tiny, herky-jerky infants with cat-like cries flooded television screens. Newspapers believed that these "crack babies" would never be able to learn much or take care of themselves. In 1989, one psychologist who specialized in drugs claimed that exposing unborn babies to cocaine "was interfering with the central core of what it is to be human."

Scientists Catch On

A newspaper columnist, Charles Krauthammer, wrote that kids born with drugs in their bodies were babies "whose future is closed to them from day one. Theirs will be a life of certain suffering, of probable deviance, of permanent inferiority…And all of this is biologically determined from birth."

Well, many teens who were once called "crack babies" are now all grown up and-surprise, surprise-we can do all the things they believed we wouldn't be able to do. We can read and write, we can love and take care of ourselves, we can go to college and work.

So it should come as no big shock that science has finally caught on to that fact. Being exposed to crack in the womb, studies have found, isn't as big a deal as everyone once said it was. In fact, it can be more damaging for a baby to be born prematurely, or for a mother to drink alcohol, or not get prenatal care for her baby.

Dr. Deborah Frank, associate professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, says there is little evidence that exposure to crack in the womb affects kids in the long run. "Based on years of careful research," she said, "we conclude the crack baby is a grotesque media stereotype, not a scientific diagnosis."

The Media's Frightening Story

Frank does say that some kids born exposed to crack may have something similar to attention-deficit disorder (ADD), which means they have trouble focusing for long periods of time. But for the most part, they don't have long-term problems, especially if they end up in a nurturing, healthy environment. Frank adds that a child's exposure to violence after birth has more of an impact on a child's behavior or IQ than prenatal exposure to cocaine.

So where did the TV get those so-called "crack babies" that seemed to be so sickly? As it turns out, most of those scrawny infants on TV hadn't received prenatal care. Often as a result, they were born premature. So when the TV showed pictures of "crack babies," it was often showing what it looked like to be born premature, not what it looked like to be born with drugs. And it was such a frightening story that the American public ate it up.

The Stereotype Still Hurts

Now we know that being born exposed to cocaine doesn't ruin a kid's life, but some of us who grew up with that label believed that we wouldn't amount to anything. Some of us got teased or taunted because of it. We deserve an apology.

And most people still don't know that those of us called crack babies are leading regular lives, and in many cases, having a positive impact on the world around us. (When the first "crack babies" hit their teens in the late-1990s, crime, youth violence, teen pregnancy and drug use began dropping dramatically.)

Until the public learns about the lie of the "crack baby," kids whose mothers used drugs while they were pregnant will continue to suffer, from the stereotype. The term, "crack baby" says Frank, "should be no more acceptable…than the N word."

-Adapted from an article by Maia Szalavitz in the March/April 2004 issue of City Limits.