N 340 Women's Health & Illness in The Expanding Family & N345 Clinical Practicum

Module 7: She's Pregnant and She's a Junkie

Names:

Prologue: This video is old (1992), but contains useful information. As with any material, there are positives and negatives. I object to the stereotypes depicted in the video of the women addicted to drug such as poor and ethnic minority women. Of course drug abuse spreads across the gamut of Americans. Alcohol is the number one abused drug known to cause birth defects and is widely used in this culture. Many women use poly drugs. For example, a woman who is using cocaine will probably also use alcohol or barbiturates to deal with the depression that follows the cocaine "high." Also many drugs are not pure and it is unknown what other drugs are used to "cut" the drug being purchased.

Approximately 375,000 babies a year are exposed prenatally to drugs (PDE). (Lewis, 1995). Women who use drugs during their pregnancies are also at risk for poorer birth outcomes because they may receive little or no prenatal care, have infections and other medical problems and have poor nutrition (Lewis, 1995). As in this video they may trade sex for drugs, which puts the women at risk for infections and physical and emotional violence.

Lewis, K. (1995). Infants and children with prenatal alcohol and Drug exposure: A guide to identification and intervention. North Branch, MN: Sunrise River Press.

Instructions: Please answer the following questions. You may work in groups and submit one paper. The group can decide how they want to divide up the assignment. Everyone in the group needs to submit a response (2-3 sentences) question number seven. Please post in the forum entitled She's Pregnant and She's a Junkie. Thanks.

1. What are some positive and negative aspects of scare tactics that might be used with pregnant women addicted to drugs?

2. Jane is a 19 year old woman who has just given birth to a baby girl with a gestational age of 34 weeks. The baby is now in the ICN. Let's say the postpartum nurses note that Jane complains a lot about perineal pain and asks for pain medication and the ICN nurses notice she doesn't seem to come in the nursery very often. The nurses know that both Jane's and the baby's urine test positive for amphetamines and marijuana. How might this information "color" the nurses' interpretations of Jane's behavior?

3. In this video these women "tell their stories" which is an important part of assisting in our understanding of people who are experiencing a certain phenomenon (in this case using drugs). What kind of themes emerged for your group while discussing this video? For example: Narcissism as a rationale, immediate hopelessness, long term hopefulness)

4. What evidence did you see that the women took responsibility for their drug addiction? What evidence did you see that they didn't take responsibility?

5. How is stress going to affect their drug use?

6. How is social support going to affect their drug use?

7. What feelings did this video evoke in you about caring for pregnant and parenting women who abuse drugs?