Welcome to the children of the 'meth' generation | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

The first generation of children exposed to methamphetamine in the womb are reaching school age and filtering into Hawke's Bay classrooms, putting pressure on resources and raising serious questions for our communities.

Behaviour at Hawke's Bay schools supports findings of a New Zealand study showing children exposed to the drug prenatally lagged behind their peers developmentally and were not "school ready".

The problem could even be worse in Hawke's Bay because of a combination of social factors that lead to increased use of drugs such as "P".

Nelson Park School principal Nevan Bridge said the Marewa school reflected society and the number of children requiring extra support was increasing.

"We can't really quantify it, but what I can say is [the number of] children with specific needs are growing and the things we are dealing with are new.

"We see more and more of these children, and you can't say these three are and these aren't, but what I can say is there has been a significant number of children who are violent or anti-social, children who can't focus or concentrate for any length of time."

Auckland University senior lecturer Trecia Wouldes has been studying a group of 110 Auckland women who used methamphetamine while pregnant.

Dr Wouldes said it was difficult to determine the exact influence of methamphetamine as all the mothers were using a cocktail of drugs, including cannabis, alcohol and cigarettes.

However, the children were starting to reach school age and preliminary results showed all of the characteristics Mr Bridge sees in his classrooms.

She said the first differences were apparent early, with 12-month-olds lagging behind peers in terms of cognitive and mental development.

"The other new finding is that these children who we are seeing at one year lag behind in development, are also continuing to lag behind at two years, three years and four years," Dr Wouldes said.

"Students getting ready to go to school are having more trouble with managing their behaviour.

"Poor behaviour management is they are unable to sit still and to attend to a task, which is one of the things we expect a child to do when they are three or four.

"If you are going to learn something you have to attend to it and you have to be able to keep your attention on it."

Hawke's Bay Hospital paediatrics clinical director Dr Philip Moore said P use was rife in Hawke's Bay and indicated other barriers children could face, such as the effects of other drug-taking during pregnancy and being raised in "chaotic and unsupportive environments".

"However, we do get anecdotal reports of the children of P users having later problems at school and are taking the issue seriously," he said.

"And if we know a pregnant mother is using P, and we often do not, we would see her as a high-risk patient."

He also said factors leading to substance abuse were more common in Hawke's Bay than elsewhere, meaning more children here could be affected.

"Research confirms that P use is more likely in younger mothers, those living with domestic violence and those who abuse other substances.

"These kinds of adverse social markers are more common in women of child-bearing age in Hawke's Bay."

Mr Bridge said schools were under pressure to support a clearly growing need, but there was no significant increase in funding.

"We have to increase support staff numbers to support their learning and special needs, the ongoing medical, social and mental health issues.

"We haven't really had a choice but to make it work, it is challenging. Very, very challenging."