RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Pregnancy in women addicted represents, in itself, a major risk of destruction of physical and mental health of the unborn child; urgent prevention is the same as essential to providing quality care to the mother and child knowledge. OBJECTIVE: Describe the physical and sociodemographic characteristics of neonates in intensive care units, born of mothers with addictions. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Cross-sectional, descriptive study of neonates with addict mothers, analyzing age, gender, clinical symptoms and complications. Findings for frequency-percentages with regard to qualitative variables, and medians and ranges for quantitative variables. SPSS-20.0-Windows Statistics software package. RESULTS: 618 patients admitted to the NICU, 180(29%) showing withdrawal symptoms; irritability in 117 (63%), intensive crying in 93 (51%), spontaneous Moro reflex 74 (42%), diarrhea 61 (30%), fever 61 (30%). Birth defects 124 (20%), from greater to lesser occurrence: disorders in central nervous system, digestive tract and abdominal wall, extremities, kidneys, and others. 309 (50%) weight lower than 2600g. The most frequent metabolic disorders were hypoglycemia, Metabolic Acidosis and jaundice, among others. CONCLUSIONS: Every day, we see more children born of substance-dependent mothers in the Mexico. Our study reveals high mortality rate and many complications for this group; thus, it becomes necessary to institute preventive measures among Mexican women of childbearing age in order to prevent illegal drug use and to increase treatment among pregnant addicts. Gynecologists, pediatricians and neonatologists must have extensive knowledge regarding the entire clinical-social spectrum of symptoms that may be observed in children of mothers suffering addictions.
