Help for Babies Born to Drug-Addicted Parents
Addiction is a terrible problem that impacts not just the person with the addiction but also their family. As a result, it is crucial to understand how to use alcoholic treatment programs to manage addiction and stay healthy. This type of care may be essential not just for the parent but for the child who is impacted by their parents’ addiction and substance abuse.
How Substance Abuse Affects Developing Children
When a mother abuses drugs when she is pregnant, she can damage the fetus, which may be irreversible. Children in this situation may end up needing a lot of physical therapy and emotional help due to conditions like brain damage and much more. Some may even develop physical abnormalities that require extensive surgery to fix before they are safe and healthy.
Even worse, some children can be born with drugs in their body that trigger withdrawal when they are born. These children may then have an addiction or symptoms of one that makes their early development very tough. Some may even be prone to developing addictions later, such as becoming heavy smokers or drinkers if their mother or father abused these substances.
Unfortunately, even when a child doesn’t develop an addiction due to their parents’ substance abuse, they may end up experiencing health issues that are devastating and hard to manage. The nature of these problems is often very complex and can last for years, even after parents either quit drugs, or the child moves out of the home in which the drugs are being abused regularly.
Even Non-Addicted Children are Affected
Though a mother’s drug abuse is the most likely to affect a child in development, a father may hurt them as well in this way. For example, a father’s secondhand cigarette, marijuana, or crack smoke may be inhaled by a non-using mother. These substances contain many dangerous chemicals that put a child’s life and development at risk, even if they don’t end up being addicted.
Many children in this situation also develop emotional problems due to their parents’ drug abuse. They may find that such use is normal and engage in it later in life. Or they may react against it and have an emotional aversion to drug use. And they may have trauma and other related symptoms related to drug abuse and watching their parents suffer in this way for many years of their life.
As a result, it is vital for parents and children alike to understand the various care methods that are available for them. These include emotional trauma support, drug addiction counseling, family therapy, and much more. And getting this treatment is something that they can do from different healthcare providers near them.
Ways to Help
Children who are born to parents with drug addiction can get help in many different ways. First of all, those who are born with drugs in their system or who have withdrawal symptoms when they are born need immediate medical care. As a result, parents who have an addiction must talk to their doctor about this issue to ensure that they provide their child with the high-quality care that they need.
After the child is born, there are many types of groups that can help manage this problem. For example, doctors can provide comprehensive medicines that keep the child from feeling excess pain while they withdraw. Many social groups can set up parents and children with specialized care that keeps parents away from drugs and helps them recover medically.
When children are born without drugs in their system, they may need help managing their parents later in life. If their parents remain addicted to drugs after their birth, it may cause some issues that can be painful, such as dealing with the legal and financial impact of drug abuse. Children may need resources that can help them when this problem impacts them.
Where Can They Get These Resources?
Groups such as the child welfare network and protective services can ensure that a child gets the help needed to handle an addicted parent. This situation is one that can cause a lot of emotional difficulties but can be managed if the child and parents work together to get through this harrowing spot. Make sure to research the different options available and work through them together as a family to get through this properly.
Author Bio: Patrick Bailey is a professional writer mainly in the fields of mental health, addiction, and living in recovery. He attempts to stay on top of the latest news in the addiction and the mental health world and enjoy writing about these topics to break the stigma associated with them.
