How to Coach Yourself and Others Empowering Coaching And Crisis Interventions | Page 172
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2005). For a review on how to improve screening for pregnant women and motivate healthcare professions to
screen for risk, refer to the Alcohol Use During Pregnancy Project.
At-Risk Screening for Drug and Alcohol Use During Pregnancy
In screening women who are pregnant, face-to-face screening interviews have not always been
successful in detecting alcohol and drug use.
Self-administered tools may be more likely to elicit honest answers; this is especially true regarding
questions related to drug and alcohol use during pregnancy.
While questions regarding past alcohol and drug use or problems associated with self, partner, and
parents will help to identify pregnant women who need further assessment, counselors should not
underestimate the importance of inquiring about previous nicotine use in order to identify women who
are at risk for substance abuse during pregnancy.
There are other factors that are associated with at-risk substance abuse among women who are pregnant,
including moderate to severe depression, living alone or with young children, and living with someone
who uses alcohol or drugs (for review, see Chasnoff et al. 2001).
Not all drugs produce physiological withdrawal; counselors should not assume that withdrawal from any drug of
abuse requires medical intervention. Only in the case of opioids, sedative-hypnotic 2