Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

Child development and parents’ responses – children under 5 years 103Although a child may have inherited learning disabilities, the environment canstill make a difference; children brought up in a warm and stimulating environmentwill have better outcomes than those who are not.It can be argued that learning disability appears to run in families, becauseparents with learning disabilities experience difficulty in providing sufficientgeneral stimulation for the child’s development and learning. However, it would bedangerous to attribute this solely to parents’ intellectual impairment. Parents withlearning disabilities frequently experience a combination of stressors that will impacton their parenting, such as having a large number of offspring, marital disharmonyand violence, poor mental health, childhood abuse, lack of social supports andpoverty (Cleaver and Nicholson 2007).Impact of parental substance misuseThere is little dispute that excessive parental drinking or drug use negatively affectsthe unborn child (see Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 2006 forthe impact of alcohol; Avis 1999; Juliana and Goodman 1997 for the impact ofillicit drugs). What is in dispute is the degree and nature of that impact.The effect of drinking or drugs on the developing foetus is dependent on threeinter-related factors (Julien 1995; Gerada 1996):the pharmacological make-up of the drugthe gestation of pregnancythe route/amount/duration of drug use.The foetus is most susceptible to structural damage during 4–12 weeks of gestation;drugs taken later generally affect growth or cause neonatal addiction (Julien 1995).Two further complicating factors in gauging the impact of maternal substanceuse on the unborn child are the combination of substances taken and the pattern ofalcohol or drug misuse. For example, women who use heroin may also use tobacco,cannabis, stimulants and tranquillisers. Moreover, the quantity and pattern ofalcohol or drug use can vary from day to day (Plant 1985).There is considerable evidence to suggest that the more frequent the use andthe larger the quantities of alcohol or drugs ingested, the greater the impact onthe unborn child (Rivinus 1991; Julien 1995). Even this agreed evidence mustbe tempered by further factors, which suggest how complex it may be to predictoutcomes for individuals.Most of the difficulties associated with problem alcohol and drug use could beameliorated to some extent by good ante-natal care. However, many pregnant drugusers do not come for ante-natal care until late in pregnancy because opiates, suchas heroin, often affect menstruation and women are uncertain of dates (Departmentof Health et al. 2007). Others may fear that revealing their drug use to ante-natal