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'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

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Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#221

Post by pdonis »

DanBC wrote: post #218
pdonis wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you actually serious? Not joking? No, I'm not joking. Evidently I have a very different take on this subject than you do. We don't know if a pregnant woman drinking a couple of units a week is doing any harm to her child. Thus, the advice is to avoid all alcohol. Yes; we don't know if it will cause harm, and it's avoidable--at least, that's the assumption underlying the advice. It makes people ignore much clearer…

> We do know that alcohol poses some risk to a developing fetus. That's all I was assuming. No, we don't. We know that a lot of alcohol poses some risk to some foetuses. We don't know that X drinks a week poses any risk to all foetuses. Maybe it's just harmful to foetuses who are compromised in some way? Maybe it's just harmful to foetuses with a genetic disposition to harm? Maybe it's not harmful at all? We don't kn…

No, we don't.

Sure we do; you go on to say the same thing. You're just emphasizing the "we don't know" part, while I was emphasizing the "there might be some risk" part. We do not know that there is no risk, which, given that alcohol use is avoidable, is the point.

Some research is just poor quality.

Yes, that's true. But the belief that alcohol might harm a developing fetus isn't just based on research. It's also based on common sense: alcohol is known to have the potential to damage your body (at a minimum, harm to the liver and the brain is known to be possible). Why put such a substance into a developing fetus if you don't have to?

And then people have different opinions.

Yes, they do. If a person's considered opinion is that their enjoyment of alcohol is worth whatever risk they believe there is of harm to their child, that's their decision. I'm simply pointing out that, to me, it seems like a no-brainer: you're balancing something that's just recreational for you, vs. a possible harm to your child.

Parents will find it hard to find this information.

That's true of many aspects of parenting, yes. Which is why, as I said above, one shouldn't rely solely on that kind of information; one should also apply common sense.

Let's not forget that parents tend to be sleep deprived and thus cognitively impaired too.

The decision whether or not to use alcohol while pregnant does not have to be made in a cognitively impaired state; decisions like that about how to care for a child should be made before the situation becomes acute.

Plus, the sleep deprivation usually comes after birth, not before, doesn't it?

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#222

Post by specialist »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #189
clavalle wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>This study did not include pre-term crack babies. >It is entirely reasonable to select only full-term babies for the study. Premature babies account for between 1/5 and 1/4 of all births to crack using mothers. If you decide to ignore those in your study because you want to study something specific then you should make it very, very clear. And anyone reporting on it should make it clear as well. It is like studying…

>If you decide to ignore those in your study because you want to study something specific then you should make it very, very clear. There are a lot of things researchers want . They write grant proposals to study things which they can, at the beginning of the study demonstrate the possibility of obtaining a useful unambiguous conclusion. I don't get the impression that the researchers misrepresented their study. Is t…

If you decide to ignore those in your study because you want to study something specific then you should make it very, very clear.

I don't know how cavalle could be more clear:

s/he's not judging the study design, but rather the popular report of the study results.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#223

Post by specialist »

pdonis wrote: post #221
DanBC wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do know that alcohol poses some risk to a developing fetus. That's all I was assuming. No, we don't. We know that a lot of alcohol poses some risk to some foetuses. We don't know that X drinks a week poses any risk to all foetuses. Maybe it's just harmful to foetuses who are compromised in some way? Maybe it's just harmful to foetuses with a genetic disposition to harm? Maybe it's not harmful at all? We don't kn…

No, we don't. Sure we do; you go on to say the same thing. You're just emphasizing the "we don't know" part, while I was emphasizing the "there might be some risk" part. We do not know that there is no risk, which, given that alcohol use is avoidable, is the point. Some research is just poor quality. Yes, that's true. But the belief that alcohol might harm a developing fetus isn't just based on research. It's also ba…

You're just emphasizing the "we don't know" part, while I was emphasizing the "there might be some risk" part.

Teach the controversy (a la Merchants of Doubt) vs the precautionary principle.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#224

Post by mpyne »

mhb wrote: post #216
mpyne wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but "it would require a Ph.D. $3000 to estimate the amount you can safely drink over the course of a pregnancy, so the only accurate amount I can recommend that we know won't cause issues is 0" might actually be a reasonable basis.

An abstruse way of saying "I don't know what you should do" is likely not particularly credibility-enhancing either.

Read it from the eyes of the patient. If they hear their doctor tell them that they have no clue, the patient is going to hear it as "I don't feel like dealing with you right now, go away", especially on a topic so extensively researched and debated. In this case they are the doctor, they should at least have a professional opinion, even if that opinion is "there's probably a safe level, but I have no way to figure it out".

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#225

Post by mpyne »

bittired wrote: post #53
jre wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you take the babies of the smartest X% people in the world and raise them in poverty then yes, their average IQ will be lower than if they were raised in a middle class household. Poverty means you have to skip meals, you can't afford books, you go to a school were there aren't enough teachers and so on... Those are all things that have an influence the intellectual development of a person.

You are confusing intelligence with intellectual capacity (IQ). IQ is the ability for a child to do exemplary things with his/her mind. Intelligence is building upon that. Being poor does not make you have lower IQ, nor does it make you less intelligent. A large number of the poor have come up from the depths and are very intelligent people.

> A large number of the poor have come up from the depths and are very intelligent people.

I like to consider myself one of those people.

But I have to say, I can't imagine how my IQ would have stayed the same as I got older if I had not at least been able to eat regularly, drink clean water, make medical check-ups, etc.

I get what you have been implying, which is that a person's theoretical intellectual capability is not necessarily tied to their current intellectual capability. But the brain is an adaptive organ, not a monolith that comes out of the womb fully-formed.

It's at least possible (and likely, IMO) that there are various 'gates' in the development of the brain where if pre-requisites for development are not met, that the opportunity for that natural development gets closed off as the brain moves onto further forms of modification and maintenance of its neural net.

At some point the brain has to switch over from adolescent development to adult 'maintenance programming'. If you are resource-constrained during that adolescent phase it may be difficult to catch back up, even in a resource surplus as an adult. This would show as a lower IQ (even on an ideal IQ test), even though a higher IQ could have been achieved with proper 'care & feeding' as a child.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#226

Post by marshray »

clavalle wrote: post #119
JulianMorrison wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who're you going to believe, a randomized controlled trial or your own lying eyes? Hint: if you believe your own eyes, your sample size is one, confirmation bias and the availability heuristic are dancing the cha-cha all over your results, and you fail at science .

Having worked with a slew of severely developmentally delayed crack babies and alcohol syndrome kids, I am going to have to go with my own eyes. This study did not include pre-term crack babies. That is a selection method that is going to skew heavily towards 'light' crack users. Crack or cocaine is very, very bad for development. It can create a child that literally cannot do anything for themselves and some that li…

> Having worked with a slew of severely developmentally delayed crack babies and alcohol syndrome kids, I am going to have to go with my own eyes.

How many healthy kids born to crack-using mothers and severely messed up kids born to non-crack-using mothers did you work with to make a basis for comparison?

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#227

Post by pyre »

saraid216 wrote: post #195
pyre wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| We do it because we as a society love to | control women This is a ridiculous claim. If anything erring on the side of caution and telling pregnant women not to drink alcohol falls under the "Think of the Children" banner. It's an effort to prevent babies from being born with issues, rather than some need to tell women to 'get back in the kitchen.'

Heh. You don't think "Think of the Children" is part of the "Women need to be controlled" category? This is also where we get the notion that there is a magical mystical maternal mojo. Women are resources, not players.

  > You don't think "Think of the Children" is
  > part of the "Women need to be controlled"
  > category?
Here are a few "Think of the Children" scenarios:

- Preventing child pornography

- Preventing child abuse

- Preventing children from hearing 'bad words'

- Stopping children from gaining access to violent video games

I fail to see how any of these is about 'controlling women.' I don't see how being generally concerned with the well-being of children (even if it's misguided) has anything to do with controlling women[1].

  > This is also where we get the notion that there is a
  > magical mystical maternal mojo.
How do we get this from "Think of the Children" + "Women Need to be Controlled?"

[1] I realize that some people's solutions to Think of the Children problems might involve 'controlling women,' but I fail to see how the entire "Think of the Children" category is a sub-category of "Women Need to be Controlled."

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#228

Post by pyre »

rayiner wrote: post #198
pyre wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| We do it because we as a society love to | control women This is a ridiculous claim. If anything erring on the side of caution and telling pregnant women not to drink alcohol falls under the "Think of the Children" banner. It's an effort to prevent babies from being born with issues, rather than some need to tell women to 'get back in the kitchen.'

So my wife was a summer associate at a law firm while she was pregnant. The difference between having a drink with dinner and not drinking at all was the difference between being a regular summer associate, interviewing for a job, and "the pregnant one." In our society, where drinking is an important social rite, not drinking makes you "the other" and we're tremendously eager to force women into that position based o…

  > Even the justifications that are possible
  > treat women like children
There are plenty of cases where social convention and/or the law treat adults like children. This, to me, seems like something that only happens to be aimed at women because they are the only ones that get pregnant. This doesn't seem like a social convention that is targeted explicitly at women because people believe that women have no self-control, and would do keg-stands while pregnant if we didn't hold them to task.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#229

Post by dalke »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #188
polymatter wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your broad argument, but it isn't clear to me if you are referencing actual studies. If you are, please at least state how you are finding them and/or the journals in which they are published so that others can do so too.

They're article titles, Google finds them easily.

Yeah, I thought the part where I said "journal article" sufficed, and that a trivial Google search would verify all of them. For what it's worth, I found the papers through PubMed searches.

I'm surprised sometimes the lengths people will go through in order to not admit they can be wrong.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#230

Post by newnewnew »

flexie wrote: post #93
calibraxis wrote: post #11

Science vs. hysterical racism, yet again. There's a reason it's "crack baby", and not "cocaine baby". Helps imprison the right sort of person. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act ) There's a much more dangerous drug than cocaine, for babies. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_cocaine_exposure ) It's alcohol, a legal drug. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome )

Of the 110 "crack babies" followed for 25 years, only 12 finished college or were on track to finish college, while 2 were shot dead. So it's only 6 times more likely for inner city kids to graduate from college than to get shot to death?

The children had an average IQ of 79. Most people with that IQ are going to struggle mightily to attend college, let alone graduate.
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