As a result, policy-makers tend to punish these women with jail sentences or removal of their children. However, the main challenge facing these infants is not that they have mothers like Ms. Whitner, but society's view that drug use by pregnant women is criminal behavior and a criminal problem, rather than a mental health behavior and a mental health problem. A pregnant woman's substance abuse is a mental health problem that needs treatment and prevention like any other health problem such as hypertension or diabetes. Society disregards the similarity between cocaine use and hypertension because the inability to control one's blood pressure is seen as an involuntary act. Dismissing the similarities between these two health problems is a symptom of the stigma associated with drug use.
Research shows that treatment for drug addictions is effective.
In fact, treatment works for drug addictions as well as it does for medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. But the stigma associated with drug use drives women away from treatment for fear of detection, incarceration and child removal. Of all people, these women and their babies need health care treatment. The children also bear the stigma. Despite mounting research to the contrary, we still have the image of the infant exposed to cocaine as a brain-damaged baby born prematurely, trembling and screaming through withdrawal.