1. The Cycle Drugs
Have on a Young
Child’s Life.
By: Fancy Fors

2. Women who use drugs while pregnant not only put their lives in danger, but their baby’s life at higher risk. According to Sara Bellum with National Institute on Drug Abuse, women who use drugs during their pregnancy put their child at risk for: low birth weight, premature labor, miscarriage, withdrawal symptoms, heart problems, disabilities and even death.

3. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) is when a baby is born addicted to an opiate drug, because the mother was using during her pregnancy. According to Health Resarch Funding, children born with NAS need to stay in the hospital for roughly 16 days to help wean them off the opiates, where as infants who are born whose mother’s weren’t using, only stay for three days.

4. When a child is raised in home where drugs are prevalent they will see this as normal behavior. There are some very serious repercussions of raising a child in a drug house. When that child grows up there is a higher probability that the will follow in their caregivers tracks; choosing the same life of drugs.
When a child is raised in home where drugs are prevalent they will see this as normal behavior. However, there are some very serious effects of raising a child in a drug house. When that child grows up one day and the follow in the same tracks as their caretaker, they will also choose a life of drugs.

5. The saddest part of a child growing up in a home with a user is the possibility of severe mental and physical damage that stems from the caregiver using, such as: neglect, physical, sexual, or verbal abuse before the age of 18. That will have an effect of how they socialize.

6. As time progresses, the child will start to use drugs
As time progresses, the child will start to use drugs. They now also share some of the same behaivors the parent or caregiver has been unintentionally teaching the child. The child will be watching you and is picking up on your habits.

7. When it comes to the child’s schooling it could affect them in many ways; the money the parent is making is going towards their habits. The child will be forced to go to school in old dirty clothes and kids will make him an outcast, damaging their self-esteem. The child will act out in different ways: not doing homework, not going to class or picking fights.

8. When the child starts to pick fights he or she will be known as a bully. As they get in high school they’ll make friends with other kids who have had a troubled past as well. They start to like going to parties, drinking, smoking etc. All the things they’ve seen time and time again growing up in a house full of users.

9. Once the teenager starts to get into the party scene and becomes comfortable, they will think they are above the law and start to make mistakes that will land them behind bars. They are now a part of the system and many have a hard time breaking away. If they don’t end up in jail they often find themselves waking up in a hospital.

10. When the teenager wakes up in the hospital because they were overdosing, they may end up finding out they have contracted an STD or HIV. This is very common in the drug scene, because when you’re high, you’re not thinking of protection and it will lead to unprotected sex. As for HIV, you are just wanting to get to that next high even if it means sharing the same needle.

11. As you can see, when a child is raised by drug addicted parents, they will face a greater chance of following in their footsteps. I know this will not always be true with all children, but the vast majority will end up becoming a user and they will end up doing the same to their children one day.

12. Goals and outcomes
In this assignment I learned many things about the dangers of drugs, Including the health risks of using or abusing drugs while you are pregnant, Women who abuse opiates while pregnant can often experience SIDS ( sudden infant death syndrome). This can happen even to a healthy baby, but the chances increase over twenty-folds with opiate addicted babies.
Even if you aren’t using any drugs when you are pregnant, but use them around your child there can still be major consequences. Children that grow up around drugs will often try them out themselves. There is no way around this it will almost certainly happen if you openly use in front of your children. They think its ok and even if they know it’s bad, children will do it if mommy and daddy are doing it, without even trying to hide it or anything to them they wont really see a problem with it. “Its just another thing grown-ups do,” that’s what they will be thinking when they try it for their first time.
When kids do try there first hit of whatever it is they decide they want to try, it can spiral them down a dark path of stealing and lying to their close friends or family. Then they start really abusing it doing whatever it takes to get the next hit, all because they saw there parents doing the same things when they where little. To them it was normal by the time they found out that this was not normal, it was an evil trying to take over your whole life a lot of the times it’s too late. One of the worst things you could do for your child is to be an addict, not all of them are bad people but have made terrible choices. Whether it be you were using, had unprotected sex and got pregnant, or you didn’t start using until you already had a child it is a terrible, sick thing to put a young person through whether you mean to or not.

13. SOURCES:
Bellum, Sara. "Using Drugs When Pregnant Harms the Baby." NIDA for Teens. N.p., 23 Sept Web. 06 Feb
Wpadmin. "13 Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Statistics." HRFnd. N.p., 04 Sept Web. 06 Feb