This should come as no surprise. According to Crack Babies Talk Back, the whole “crack baby” phenomenon was overblown:
Crack babies, it turns out, were a media myth, not a medical reality. This is not to say that crack is harmless. Infants exposed to cocaine in the womb, including the crystallized version known as crack, weigh an average of 200 grams below normal at birth, according to a massive, ongoing National Institutes of Health study. ?For a healthy, ten-pound Gerber baby this is no big deal,? explains Barry Lester, the principal investigator. But it can make things worse for small, sickly infants.Lester has also found that the IQs of cocaine-exposed seven-year-olds are four and a half points lower on average, and some researchers have documented other subtle problems. Perhaps more damaging than being exposed to cocaine itself is growing up with addicts, who are often incapable of providing a stable, nurturing home. But so-called crack babies are by no means ruined. Most fare far better, in fact, than children whose mothers drink heavily while pregnant.
Now we’ve moved on to meth babies.