National Pregnancy and Health Survey: Drug Use Among Women Delivering Live Births, 1992

The primary objective of the National Pregnancy and Health
Survey (NPHS) was to produce national annual estimates of the
percentages and numbers of mothers of live newborns in the United
States who used selected licit and illicit drugs in the 12 months
prior to delivery. A further objective was to describe patterns of
prenatal substance use among demographic subgroups of
women. Information on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics,
obstetric history, and drug treatment of women who delivered infants
at sampled hospitals was obtained through an interviewer-administered
questionnaire, while data on substance use before and during pregnancy
were collected through a questionnaire completed by the respondent and
concealed from the interviewer. Respondents were asked about use of
the following substances: alcohol, amphetamines, analgesics, cocaine,
crack cocaine, barbiturates, hallucinogens, hashish, heroin,
marijuana, methadone, methamphetamine, sedatives, stimulants, tobacco,
and tranquilizers. Additionally, information was collected on the
respondent's pregnancy, prenatal care, delivery, previous pregnancies,
and background. Additional data were obtained from the mothers' and
infants' medical records. Urine specimens collected routinely by the
hospital on obstetric admissions were tested for selected
drugs. Finally, in a subsample of six hospitals, hair specimens were
requested from respondents to evaluate the potential of hair as a
source of toxicological data in future studies.