The Rising Number of Foster Children In October of 2012, a little boy named Matthew was born. He was born prematurely, underweight, and was running a fever the day he was born. Matthew was prenatally exposed to some controlled substances including methamphetamine. He was immediately placed into a foster home after being released from the hospital. His biological mother was on illegal drugs and his father was in jail. Matthew had four biological half sisters and one full sister; all of them had already been adopted or were in the process of adoption by different families. Unfortunately, this is a common story for many children in the United States. The number of foster children is on the rise due to many causes. “As of the middle of 2016, more than 18,000 Arizona children are living under the state's supervision, residing in foster homes, group homes, with relatives or, as a last resort, shelters”(Pitzl, Mary Jo). The alarming rise of foster kids in the United States is a crisis that needs to be stopped. …show more content…
If people know about all the problems that are attached to infant exposure to drugs and alcohol they would be less likely to be using during pregnancy. If a newborn was prenatally exposed to drugs, alcohol, or a non-prescribed controlled substance there is a high risk of abuse or neglect (Parental Drug Use). If people understood statistics like that they would be so much less likely to start an addiction that could grow out of control and affect their lives later. More than sixty percent of children in the foster system are there because of parental drug abuse (Bever and Stein 1). This statistic shows how many children are affected by parental drug abuse and that eliminating the problem of parental drug abuse would decrease the growing number of foster