Factors such as poverty that are frequently associated with PCE have a much stronger influence on children's intellectual and academic abilities than does exposure to cocaine in isolation. Children in households where cocaine is abused are at risk of violence and neglect, and those in foster care may experience problems due to unstable family situations. Pregnant mothers who use cocaine, often use other drugs in addition, or they may be malnourished and lacking in medical care. Thus, studies have failed to clearly show that PCE has negative cognitive effects, partly because such effects may be due to concurrent factors.

PCE is very difficult to study because it very rarely occurs in isolation usually it coexists with a variety of other factors, which may confound a study's results. No scientific evidence has shown a difference in harm to a fetus between crack and powder cocaine. The effects of cocaine on a fetus are thought to be similar to those of tobacco, and are less severe than those of alcohol. However, PCE is associated with premature birth, birth defects, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other conditions. PCE also appears to have little effect on infant growth. Studies focusing on children of six years and younger have not shown any direct, long-term effects of PCE on language, growth, or development as measured by test scores. No specific disorders or conditions have been found to result for people whose mothers used cocaine while pregnant.

Commentators have characterized the phenomenon as a moral panic. Scientists have come to understand that the findings of the early studies may have been overstated. with small sample sizes and confounding factors).

Later studies failed to substantiate the findings of earlier ones that PCE has severe disabling consequences these earlier studies had been methodologically flawed (e.g. Fears were widespread that a generation of crack babies was going to put severe strain on society and social services as they grew up. Early studies reported that people who had been exposed to crack in utero would be severely emotionally, mentally, and physically disabled this belief became common in the scientific and lay communities. Other terms are 'cocaine baby' and 'crack kid'. 'Crack baby' was a term coined to describe children who were exposed to crack ( freebase cocaine in smokable form) as fetuses the concept of the crack baby emerged in the US during the 1980s and 1990s in the midst of a crack epidemic. Babies whose mothers used cocaine while pregnant supposedly have increased risk of several different health issues during growth and development. Prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), theorized in the 1970s, occurs when a pregnant woman uses cocaine and thereby exposes her fetus to the drug.

Target 3001 crack