Effectiveness of Prenatal Screening for Substance Use: Critical Consciousness, A Promising Curriculum for Compassionate Screening

Substance use during pregnancy is a substantial public health challenge. In many cultures, approximately one third of people with drug dependence are women of childbearing age [1], and in the USA, five percent of pregnant women reported the use of an illicit drug during pregnancy [2]. In Alberta, the reported prevalence of substance use by pregnant women was 30% for tobacco, 25% for alcohol, and 15% for illicit drugs [3,4]. The Sheway’s evaluation in 1998 reported an annual population of 3,000 families with pregnant women and parenting mothers who used substance in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver [5,6,7]. The Universal prenatal screening for substance use (PSSU) has been promoted as a public health solution to reduce obstetric complications, developmental retardations, neonatal abstinence syndrome and increased mortality [4,8-10].