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Tik time bomb04.10.2012

Meggan Adams is a young mother and regular tik user from the Cape Flats.Photo credit:

Shamiel Alberteyn

Photo credit:

Shamiel Alberteyn

Photo credit:

Shamiel Alberteyn

Each year around a thousand young women addicted to crystal methamphetamine, or tik, give birth to so-called tik babies in Cape Town.I started smoking [heroine, dagga and tik] while I was 16 years old, said Meggan Adams from the Cape Flats whilefilling her glass pipe with more of the white tik crystals. She is six-and-a-half-months pregnant with her second child.

With my first child I was smoking five packets [of tik] a day one packet just wasn't enough for me, Meggan said.There were times, after I smoked, that I could feel the child being like hyperactive in my tummy.

Meggan has been living on the streets of Cape Town since she was a child, and despite her pregnancy, prefers tosleep out on the street. According to her, she doesnt like spending time at home and would rather roam around,begging for money to buy food.

Im very worried about her on the streets, very worried, said Meggans mother, Amiena, who often comes to town tomeet with her and to get some money from her to help support Meggans 5 year old son.

A Health-e News documentary investigating the use of tik among pregnant women was produced by JohannAbrahams and will be featured on Special Assignment on Thursday 4 October, SABC 3 at 9 pm.

Alecia (not her real name), another heavily pregnant young woman from Bishop Lavis, also on the Cape Flats, told

how she started smoking tik at the age of 18 after seeing her friends do it. I smoked with them, and ever since thenIm smoking, she said while lighting up a tik pipe. Throughout her pregnancy she was smoking up to three bags of tika day. Two days after the interview in mid June she gave birth to a baby boy called Clintino.

At the age of only six weeks baby Clintino died of unknown causes. I dont know what happened, said Alecia. TheFriday he was still okay, but Saturday when I woke up he was blue in the face I miss him a lot every day, everyhour.

According to Professor Johan Smith, head of the Neonatal Unit at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, it is estimatedthat around 200 000 people in the Western Cape use tik, and many of them are pregnant women. Babies born toheavy tik-using mothers may suffer acute symptoms of withdrawal. These babies are very agitated and irritable, theycry a lot, and they may have seizures, said Smith. Between 500 and 1 000 babies are born to tik-using mothers in

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According to Smith, tik reduces the size of the region of the brain essential for learning and memory. Its a threat tothe brain development and the physical health of pregnant mothers, and their children. And it is a threat to the futureof our country, said Smith.

Dr Kirsty Donald of the Red Cross Childrens Hospital in Cape Town conducted a study into the effects of crystal methon children.

We followed up a group of neonates whose mothers had reported tik abuse in pregnancy and we looked at theirbehaviour and developmental outcomes between two and four years of age, Donald explained. What was very clearfrom the results is that children who are exposed to methamphetamin definitely have behavioural and certain

developmental problems compared to controls who come from the same communities.

According to Nirosha Moolla, a school psychologist who often deals with school-going children exposed to tik beforebirth, these children are much slower than the others in the class. They struggle to remember, they struggle to holdon to information, so they cant build on information as they get older. They learn something today, and then a fewmonths down the line they have lost that information because they cant retain it in their memory, said Moolla.

Every year there are children in my class that cannot cope with the work because they come from grade 1 but cannotread, said Theresa Abrahams, a grade-2 teacher at a school in Eastridge, Mitchells Plain.

What I picked up recently at many schools, that these learners present with a lot of anger, and it is unprovokedanger, said Faizel Cottle, a learning support advisor. So there are different symptoms, and it is very closely related toFAS [foetal alcohol syndrome].

We are very worried about the scourge of drug abuse on the Cape Flats, said Albert Fritz, Provincial Minister ofSocial Development for the Western Cape, adding that there are substance abuse working groups actively working onthe problem. Two years ago we had only about four treatment centers in the province. We have now 24 treatmentcenters, 22 of which are run by NGO's which we support, and two run by us, said Fritz. Despite these successes, headmits that there is a need for more preventative work.

Watch Special Assignment on Thursday, 4 October, SABC 3 at 9pm for the full story.