How Does Drug Use During Pregnancy Affect Children?

Sorry, this event’s been and gone

When:

Wed 10 Feb ’10, 7:00pm–8:00pm

Where: Room 260-073, OGGB4, Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland CBD

Restrictions: All Ages

Ticket Information:

Admission: Free

Favourites:

uniauckland

2010 ASB visiting professor, Barry M. Lester, will give a free public lecture titled: "How does methamphetamine ‘P’ and other drug use during pregnancy affect the outcome of children?"

Dr Lester is Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour and Paediatrics at Brown Medical School. He received his PhD in developmental psychology from Michigan State University in 1973. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in paediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

He is the founder and director of the Brown Centre for the Study of Children at Risk a joint initiative between Women and Infants Hospital and Brown Medical School. His research speciality is developmental processes in infants at risk, including infants with prenatal substance exposure. He is particularly interested in the interplay between the biological, parenting, and social environmental forces that drive development.

His research has been supported by NIH grants for over 30 years. A past member of NIH study sections, Dr Lester is currently a member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse. He is principal investigator of two of the largest and longest running longitudinal, multi-site studies of prenatal exposure to drugs.

His maternal lifestyle study is currently following up adolescents who were exposed prenatally to crack-cocaine and his infant development, environment and lifestyle study is currently following up five-year-old children who were exposed prenatally to methamphetamine 'p'. His interest and research in this area has lead to the development of a standardised measure of early neurobehaviour of high risk infants and a vulnerable infants programme in collaboration with the family courts. This program provides the much needed support of parenting in families where one or more parents are drug dependent.

Professor Lester is past president of the International Association of Infant Mental and currently he is a member of the US National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse.