A baby's cry can tell many things about the condition of the infant. He or she cries when hungry or sleepy, when he or she doesn't feel comfortable. However, based on a new study, it can also be used to detect some damage in the nervous system that may be caused by the mother's exposure to certain drugs such as cocaine.
Philip Sanford, PhD, is the lead author of a newly published study in PLOS ONE, as part of a research initiative called CAMID (Cocaine Affects Mother-Infant Dyads) research initiative. He is also a psychology and clinician research professor in the University of North Carolina and a researcher of Levine Children's Hospital.
Based on his study, which was published on Wednesday, October 22, in the PLOS ONE website, babies who tend to have serious issues with the nervous system emit a different kind of cry called hyperphonation. It is mostly high-pitched cry that is very distinct from the cries of other healthy babies.
Nevertheless, back then, his team can't figure out whether the damage to the nervous system is caused by factors such as depression of the mother during pregnancy or poor prenatal care.
The new study therefore is the first to establish a link between the mom's exposure to harmful substances such as cocaine and its possible effects on the life and health of the baby.
Based on their experiments, babies who are born from mothers that might have ingested cocaine especially during pregnancy have increased amounts of hyperphonation, but that's not the only thing they've discovered.
Using lab mice, which had been exposed to cocaine, they also found out that rat pups emit a different kind of vocalization that is only similar to hyperphonation, which is also being emitted by babies that had been exposed to cocaine.
These findings will then allow the researchers to conduct a translational analyses and help them find the specific effects of cocaine to the brain or nervous systems of babies.