THE more painkillers a woman gets during labour, the more likely her child is
to abuse drugs later in life.
Karin Nyberg of the University of Gothenburg and her colleagues looked at
medication given to the mothers of 69 adult drug abusers and 33 of their
siblings who did not abuse drugs. They found that 23 per cent of the drug
abusers were exposed to multiple doses of opiates or barbiturates in the hours
before birth, compared with only 3 per cent of their siblings without drug
problems (Epidemiology, vol 11, p 715). If the mothers received three
or…
