Drug Exposure in Utero

Has anyone had any experience with babies being born addicted? I’ve heard that some drugs hurt the baby forever, and that others don’t impact the baby much at all. I know that alcohol can seriously harm the baby, and give them fetal alcohol syndrome. But I’ve heard that things like heroin doin’t do anything like that to the baby. That doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, does anyone have any knowledge about this?

No experience but I've heard the same thing.

Well, it's a case of nurture vs. nature. We cannot predict what will happen in the future but if the child is well taken care of while growing up then he or she might be a productive member of society.

I can only speak to METH and alcohol.I'm parenting siblings, both exposed to METH and alcohol. The child that was carried to term, and not actively addicted to METH when they were born, has some issues, but successfully progressed through school with kids in their age group. The child that was born premature, was more heavily exposed to METH, and actively addicted to METH at birth, so spent time in the NICU, to save their life, and I've been told that the meds they "have" to use in the NICU are known to cause issues like ADHD. This child is about a year behind their age group in school, and had other brain issues that follow the list of exposure to METH (look up METH brain), and needed significant support at school, and it remains to be seen how well this child can adapt to those challenges, and progress in their education. The bright spot for this child is that once the dose of their ADHD meds was correct, they took off in their learning, doubling their reading score, in two months. I wasn't told these children had been exposed to METH, until after they were in my care. It posed a lot of challenges, and when these two kids finally got the medications they needed, then they could show us how very intelligent they both are. The second child has memory issues to overcome, and I don't know how that's going to play out. It's a long haul, and for me, it was a huge payout after 2 years, to see them behaving as other kids do, and I feel a lot of hope, though I also know that the road we face is and will always be challenging. I remind myself sometimes, that parents who have biological children sometimes end up on the same road that we are on, for other reasons, but still, here we all are.