Prenatal Dangers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Prenatal Dangers - Essay Example 2448). The study was conducted by doctors at an urban teaching hospital and the research subjects included three hundred and seventy-six pre-school children. Of these children, one hundred and ninety experienced fetal brain exposures to cocaine and one hundred and eight-six did not experience such exposure. The main testing standards were related to intellectual quotient measurements; more specifically, the study employed the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Intelligence-Revised measurements for determinations of outcomes. The findings were rather interesting. As an initial matter, this study was pursued because of inconsistent results regarding the longer-term consequences of prenatal cocaine exposure. The findings in this case, dealing only with the effects noticed in a child's initial four-year lifespan, were seemingly mild in certain ways. In many respects, the study found that fetal brain exposure to cocaine did not cause a lower full-scale intelligence quotient, did not cause lower scores or verbal performance generally, and did not cause any significant differences in performance. On the other hand, there were some findings which suggested that the potential dangers of prenatal drug exposure, in this case cocaine, were real.