The monograph's first two chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the legal and medical issues, while the other two chapters discuss the crucial role of interdisciplinary and interagency cooperation in the handling of these cases. The analyses indicate the if drug testing of newborn infants or pregnant women is undertaken, universal testing rather than protocol selection is likely to indicate most reliably the incidence of drug use. In addition, the most efficient way to process drug-exposed infants through the medical, child protection, and legal systems is to form multidisciplinary teams to track the infant and family from birth onward. Moreover, prenatal and postnatal drug treatment for mothers and their infants is currently more cost-efficient than long-term foster care, group nursery, adoption, and parental involvement in the criminal justice system. Finally, it is best to avoid the criminal prosecution of pregnant drug abusers due to both the legal complexities and its deterrent effect on good health care rather than on fetal abuse.