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The deleterious effects of maternal cocaine use on the fetus and nursing infant have recently been described. This paper is the first to report the likely danger of passive inhalation of crack (freebase cocaine) to young children.
The authors present reports on four infants and toddlers who had acute onset of neurologic symptoms (seizure, seizure-like disorder, excessive drowsiness, and unsteady gait). In each case, the child was full-term and previously healthy, cocaine was detected in the urine without known ingestion of the substance, extensive evaluation failed to explain the sudden neurologic symptoms, and symptoms resolved completely. The only common factor among all four children was passive inhalation of freebase cocaine used by adul…