00:00 At 31 weeks pregnant, Alicia's substance use issues are at the front of her mind.
00:07 For me, I feel like me using drugs when I'm pregnant, that's the lowest I could have possibly gone.
00:13 It's the one thing I said I would never, ever, ever, ever do and I did it.
00:17 The 24-year-old was using ice and cannabis when she fell pregnant.
00:21 She's been lucky to get a place in residential rehab before her baby is born,
00:26 but it's been difficult to find help.
00:29 There's been points in my life where I've been in hospitals and I've been like begging, crying for help
00:36 and they've just looked at me like you're a worthless junkie kind of thing.
00:40 Thousands of Australian babies are born every year exposed to their mother's drug use.
00:46 The reality is that methamphetamines are highly, highly, highly addictive.
00:50 We should be paying attention to this across the nation.
00:53 A Four Corners investigation has found key systems are failing to deal with this crisis.
00:59 Despite research showing babies exposed to methamphetamines can suffer long-term consequences.
01:06 University of Auckland professor Tresha Walds is studying those effects.
01:11 We found the methamphetamine babies were lagging behind.
01:14 The thing that we see the most is poor behaviour on these children.
01:18 A conduct disorder is likely to be what you're going to see as they get older.
01:23 Professor Walds says Australia needs to urgently invest in its own research.
01:28 It's a big problem in Australia. It's going to be an intergenerational problem.
01:33 Unlike fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, there's no diagnosis or specific funding for children exposed to drugs before birth.
01:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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