A new study by the National Survey of Drug Use and Health states that women who abuse substances prior to childbirth and pregnancy, even if they avoid it at all costs during pregnancy, often fall back into their old ways after the birth of their child.  Within three months.

The same study shows that one in eight women still consume alcohol while pregnant.

The new information relates that thirty-one percent of women surveyed resumed their practices of drinking, smoking or drug use after pregnancy.  According to Peter Delany, head of Applied Sciences in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration who conducted the study, states that the issue:

“is that having children creates a protective factor so that women may not be going back to drug use.”

Yet, thirty-one percent of women surveyed did, in fact, go back to their sometimes-detrimental pre-childbirth behavior.

The study itself could be a double-edged sword.  It’s one thing if a woman who was a meth head or a coke head prior to pregnancy and resumed after giving birth to her child; it’s an entirely different hue of horse if the woman goes back to smoking cigarettes or having the occasional glass of wine, or even a raucous night out on the town every once in a great while.  I found out I was pregnant at age twenty-three.  I was living with my fiance, and at the time, we had the date set for our wedding and all of the plans were in motion for the following fall.  However, my daughter, who impetuously from conception insisted that it was going to be her way or the highway, came into the picture a few years ahead of schedule.  That is neither here nor there; she is a blessing and whether she came when she did or five years from now would make no difference.  My husband and I were ready for her from the get-go and prepared in every way that we knew best.

I used to be a lead singer of a local cover band and traveled the Tri-State (Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey) area for over three years playing gigs and partying on a nightly basis.  Even after I met my husband-to-be, I continued my journey with the band, despite his worry.  Up until the winter preceding the conception bombshell, my band days continued.  Christmas of that particular year arrived and I decided to do a little soul-searching.  I decided to leave the band, after almost four years of good times and concentrate more on my life ahead with my then-fiance.  Almost like clockwork, I became pregnant, even while on The Pill.  Like I said, this little girl was having her way one way or another.  Nothing could stop her then and sure as shit, nothing can stop her now.  I found out I was pregnant in March of 2007 and gave birth to a lovely little lady that following November.

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Chicago has some mean streets.  So mean, in fact, that its own prostitutes are afraid and almost unwilling to commence their services lately.  Cook County, which encompasses inter-city Chicago and its outlying areas, has begun the process of implementing “hooker rehabilitation” through its Social Services department.  The program, set up through the sheriff’s prostitution intervention team, provides prostitutes with stable living quarters (much like a halfway house), training and encouragement to begin making a respectable living and the support necessary to encourage reintroduction back into the community.

The intervention team — which includes a former prostitute and drug addict — is fighting an uphill battle against the one-two punch of drug addiction and poverty. In its first test as part of a prostitution roundup in November, only one of eight women picked up agreed to join the program. She still attends weekly meetings with staff, is getting help with child care and has re-enrolled in college. But many women — even the ones who admit they’re tired of life on the street — decline the help. One woman the team spoke to said she wasn’t ready yet — she and her girlfriend have a hotel room paid up for the week, and she doesn’t want to get clean without her friend.

Cook County jail, located in Chicago, reports the statistic that forty percent of women in that particular area who are jailed have served as a prostitute at one point in their lives.

Most of the women that participated in the study and interviews stated that they “never really felt their lives were worth much,” anyway.

I think that this program is a positive step toward recovery for a lot of women.  Recovery from a lot of things, debilitating self-esteem issues and drug addiction, just to name two of the main issues.

Prostitution, a “profession” going back to the ancients, is legal in every country except the United States (certain areas of Nevada being an exception), India, Argentina and some Muslim and Communist countries.  Other countries in the world find that it is a necessary occupation, being that it is sex between two consenting adults: services rendered, services paid.  The attitude of the countries that condone prostitution claim that it doesn’t harm anyone.

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