Cardiovascular Effects of Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure

Methamphetamine (MA) is one of the commonly used drugs during pregnancy. Cardiovascular effects of MA include elevated blood pressure, acute vasospasm, atherosclerotic disease, structural and electrical remodeling of cardiac tissue leading to arrhythmias and heart failure, and pulmonary hypertension.1 In addition, MA can cause neurotoxicity with harmful effects on neurodevelopment in the children who had prenatal exposure.5-8 Currently neonatal providers do not perform detailed cardiovascular evaluation in newborn period or long term neurodevelopmental assessments as outpatient for the newly born infants with prenatal exposure to MA, and they do not qualify for early intervention. The goal of the investigators is to perform detailed cardiovascular evaluation in neonatal period and estimate baseline prevalences and follow up with developmental and cardiovascular assessment using a questionnaire at 12 months in a cohort of neonates enriched with those who had prenatal exposure to MA.