Today's society is overridden with drugs, and we are happy to pop a pill whenever anything hurts. But in the case of women who are pregnant, could this nonchalance be leading to morally questionable outcomes?
The placenta between the fetus and the mother is a highly effective barrier against bacteria, but falls short when it comes to stopping the passing of very small chemical particles. Once such chemicals reach the fetus, they can have much more drastic effects upon the developing human than on the adult mother, sometimes even affecting the fetus's potential later on in life. For example, alcohol can trigger death of cells in the brain and produce distinct neurocognitive deficits as well as anatomical defects. Studies have also shown that the chances of mental retardation and cancer risk in a child are significantly higher when the mother takes prescription drugs of any kind during her pregnancy.
Obviously, many women are careful to avoid such risky substances while pregnant and are looking out for their child's best interests. However, many women unwittingly abuse their fetuses and compromise the quality of their child's life later on. There is also no guarantee that a pregnant woman will even take responsibility for her child or even be a good mother once it is born, so perhaps society needs to enforce stricter rules on what woman can ingest while they are pregnant? Some might argue a breach of individual rights, but when society has to pick up the slack for taking care of a mentally retarded child who was damaged by drugs while developing and whose mother abandoned them, surely we could avoid much unhappiness and suffering by overriding the mother's rights for a short period of time?
The question also arises as to whether you feel that the fetus's life is more important than the mother's, as does the issue of when a mother's life is dependent upon prescription drugs. In the case of when the mother's wellness completely depends on a certain prescription drug, the mother should obviously be permitted to take such a drug. However, we could still potentially avoid damaging many potential lives simply by imposing stricter rules on what pregnant women can and cannot ingest, for example when it comes to over the counter drugs and alcohol.
Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=medication-prenatal-health
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2 comments:
A women has a responsibility to their child when they are pregnant, yet too many mothers fail to fulfill this responsibility--and this is a problem often dismissed in our society.
I definitely agree that there needs to be a greater emphasis on fetal health, and drug regulation for pregnant mothers is a promising solution. In addition to this, I think that there needs to be a greater emphasis placed on education expecting mothers, especially young women, on the harmful effects drugs can have on their child.
As part of my senior project graduation requirement this past spring, I experienced first hand the effects of substance abuse on newborn children. I interned in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a local county hospital. Newborns are sent to the NICU either directly after they are born, if there were serious consequences with the birth, or if they were facing serious health risks in the nursery. The most cause problem among the patients was prematurity, meaning that they were born before the 37th week of pregnancy. As a consequence, these babies face an incredibly uphill battle just to make it out of the hospital, and even if they survive, they face dire health risks and medical complications in the future. The hospital I interned at serves a primarily poor population, and as a result, many of the mother's that came through the unit came from impoverished areas. The majority of them were teenagers, and often were less than seventeen or eighteen years old. In conversations with the doctors and nurses that I worked with, the reason for prematurity was because the mother abused substances during her pregnancy--often unaware of the consequences.
When reflecting on my project, I felt incredibly uncomfortable with the overwhelmingly large number of premature births stemming from the same cause. Though I definitely agree that more stringent laws should be put in place to regulate an expecting mother's use of drugs, increased education is something that would truly work to attack the root causes of many of these problems. Schools, especially those of impoverished areas, need to teach young men and women about the risks of substance abuse during pregnancy. To decrease the number of premature births, and birth defects that stem from a mother's lack of responsibility, we truly need to increase awareness among women, especially young women, about the risks that their own destructive decisions can have on their child.
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Sources:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/prematurebabies.html
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