The crack mother myth is the belief that when a mother uses crack cocaine while pregnant, she will have crack babies, who will be severely disabled and dysfunctional for their entire lives. During the 1980s and 1990s, US health experts, along with lay people, were in a collective panic about the allegedly growing crack epidemic. It was believed that the number of children exposed to crack cocaine in utero was growing almost uncontrollably, and the children of mothers who used crack cocaine were viewed as being sentenced to lives of physical and mental disability. More specifically, the crack mother myth functions to reinforce existing stereotypes about African American women and, specifically, African American mothers. Some scholars view the crack mother as an image that functions to reify African American female pathology. The crack mother can be described as a hypersexual, promiscuous, and hopelessly dysfunctional “bad” mother who threatens the mainstream by giving birth to numerous children that drain the government's resources.