Brain and Ocular Abnormalities in Infants With In Utero Exposure to Cocaine and Other Street Drugs

Neurosonographic imaging of small‐for‐gestational‐age neonates exposed and not exposed to cocaine and cytomegalovirus

“…Plasma cholinesterase activity is much lower in pregnant women and their fetuses.lg Cocaine crosses the placenta by simple diffusion.20 It is theorized that an infant may continue to be exposed to cocaine and its metabolites by reingestion of norcocaine excreted in amniotic fluid.21 Among the metabolites of cocaine it is only norcocaine that can cross the blood-brain barrier. 22 Structural central nervous system (CNS) lesions of neonates exposed to cocaine have been documented by Dixon and Bejar' and Dominguez et al 23 Our findings are consistent with those of Dixon except that there were no cases of intraventricular or subarachnoid hemorrhage in our series. In addition, we have described the two new findings of caudate echogenicity and a "motheaten" appearance of the thalamus.…”

A Case-Control Study of Maternal Periconceptual and Pregnancy Recreational Drug Use and Fetal Malformation Using Hair Analysis

“…One previous study described ten infants with developmental delay and congenital cerebral anomalies who were found to have had in utero exposure to vasoactive drugs such cocaine and heroin [26], and another case has similarly reported a possible association of septo-optic dysplasia with multiple maternal recreational drug use [27]. Our study suggests a significant association between recreational drug use that includes vasoactive drugs and the non-vasoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol, and CNS defects.…”

Refining clinical phenotypes in septo-optic dysplasia based on MRI findings

“…Alternatively, a vascular disruption sequence during embryonic brain development has been discussed [17]. However, HESX1 mutations seem to be rare [21], whereas association with young maternal age at birth and drug abuse during pregnancy support a vascular pathogenesis [12,16,19]. We also observed young maternal age, which was equally distributed between SP subgroups and uONH or bONH.…”