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Your baby's brain on drugs (and alcohol and tobacco) 

The brain image at left is from a subject exposed to alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine and marijuana in utero, while the image at right is from a same-age, same-sex control with... Click here for more information.

Although behavioral studies clearly indicate that exposure to drugs, alcohol and tobacco in utero is bad for a baby's developing brain, specific anatomic brain effects have been hard to tease out in humans. Often users don't limit themselves to one substance, and demographic factors like poverty can also influence brain development.

Now, an NIH-funded study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans, led by Children's Hospital Boston neurologist Michael Rivkin, MD, suggests that prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or tobacco (alone or in combination) may have effects on brain structure that persist into early adolescence. The findings, published in the April issue of Pediatrics, are of public health significance, the researchers say, since it's estimated that more than 1 million babies born annually in the United States have been exposed to at least one of these agents in utero.

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