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Article: Barbiturates seen to lower intelligence
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- November 16, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1995 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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A new warning to pregnant women: Taking phenobarbital, a
barbiturate, can lower your baby's intelligence.
A study of 114 adult men found that those whose mothers took the
drug during pregnancy had significantly lower verbal intelligence
scores than those whose mothers had not. There was no significant
difference between the groups in scores measuring general
intelligence or perceptual organization.
Phenobarbital has been prescribed to treat hypertension related to
pregnancy and other medical problems, but it has also been abused.
Between 1960 and the late 1970s, more than 22 million children were
born in this country to women who took prescribed barbiturates during
pregnancy.
The ...