Prenatal Substance Use Policies And Infant Maltreatment Reports.

ABSTRACT: We studied the effect of state punitive and supportive prenatal substance use policies on reports of infant maltreatment to child protection agencies. Punitive policies criminalize prenatal substance use or define it as child maltreatment, whereas supportive policies provide pregnant women with priority access to substance use disorder treatment programs. Using difference-in-differences methods, we found that total infant maltreatment reports increased by 19.0 percent after punitive policy adoption during the years of our study (2004-18). This growth was driven by a 38.4 percent increase in substantiated reports in which the mother was the alleged perpetrator. There were no changes in unsubstantiated reports after the adoption of punitive policies. We observed no changes in infant maltreat

SUBMITTER: Maclean JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10035583 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature