4 Troubled Teens Blog

Women who use methamphetamine when they are pregnant are putting their babies at risk for structural abnormal abnormalities in the brain, according to a new study from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Researchers had trouble finding women who used methamphetamine but did not combine it with alcohol.

"About half the women who say they use meth during pregnancy also use alcohol," said Professor Elizabeth Sowell, author of the study, "so isolating the effects of meth on the developing brain was difficult."

• Dr. Sowell and her colleagues performed brain scans on 61 children, average age 11 years old.
  
• Thirteen had been exposed to alcohol only, 21 had pre-natal exposure to methamphetamine and alcohol, and 27 were exposed to neither.
  
• Dr. Sowell found that brain regions in the children exposed to methamphetamine were similarly damaged as those in the alcohol exposed children, and in some areas they were smaller or larger.

"The tragedy is that all these developmental problems are 100 percent avoidable," said Dr. Sowell, writing in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Labels: pregnancy, mothers, brain_chemistry, meth

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

The Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare will receive nearly $500,000 dollars from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Associated Press has reported:

The grant will be used to fund a collaboration with a local treatment facility. The Meta House allows children to enter residential programs with their mothers. That allows the family to remain together while the mother gets substance-abuse treatment.

Officials told the AP that supporting the whole family is important and that, when mothers seek help for addiction, their children are often at risk. The Meta House works to counteract that risk by keeping the family together, they said.

Labels: parental_involvement, mothers, grants, family

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Maternal depression increases a teenager's risk for depression, even if the teen is adopted, according to a study from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Erin Tully and colleagues studied 568 adopted adolescents and 446 teens who were living with their biological parents. Depression in mothers, but not fathers, increased the likelihood of the teen having depression and behavioral problems, including juvenile delinquency. This was true in both groups, but especially in non-adoptees, which implied a genetic component as well.

If a mother responded successfully to interventions, such as medication and psychotherapy, her child's mental health improved too.

This study appears in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Labels: depression, mothers, influences

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

A Chicago-area mom feels like she’s at the end of her rope. Her 17-year-old son is robbing houses, breaking into cars and disappearing for days at a time. Now, some local gangs have coming looking for him, hoping to make him a new recruit.

The teen’s mom is now asking local authorities to lock him up, either in a juvenile detention facility, or a mental health ward. She fears it’s the only way to get him some help and keep him from hurting either himself or someone else.

“West Side Youth Network, an agency under contract with the state that specializes in crisis intervention, was unsuccessful in its efforts to help this family. ‘You have a deeply disturbed youth who is resistant to any kind of help, and that has been difficult,’ said Kendall Marlow, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services.” - Source: Chicago Sun-Times

 

Labels: parental_involvement, juvenile crime, mothers

Posted By: Stefanie Hamilton 1 Comment