According to a new study, more and more women are opting to use marijuana while pregnant.
The study, which was published in the journal JAMA on Tuesday, has shown that there is a rise in marijuana use among women who are pregnant. Considering that the drug has been known to help with nausea of morning sickness and anxiety, it doesn’t seem like a surprise.
Using a sample of pregnant woman in California, the study found that the number of pregnant women climbed from 4.2% to 7.1% from 2009 to 2016.
The prevalence of marijuana use was also seen to be among pregnant teens who were younger than 18. That number climbed from 12.5% to 21.8%. The number for women ages 18 to 24 using marijuana while pregnant climbed from 9.8% to 19%.
According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “women who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy should be encouraged to discontinue marijuana use” and “to discontinue use of marijuana for medicinal purposes in favor of an alternative therapy.”
It has also been said that “there are insufficient data to evaluate the effects of marijuana use on infants during lactation and breastfeeding, and in the absence of such data, marijuana use is discouraged.”
“We were concerned to find that the prevalence of marijuana use in pregnancy is increasing more quickly among younger females, aged 24 and younger, and to see the high prevalence of use in this age group,” the study’s lead author, Kelly Young-Wolff said. Wolff is a licensed clinical psychologist and research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research.
She wrote, “We were unable to distinguish prenatal use before versus after women realized they were pregnant. Marijuana is detectable in urine approximately 30 days after last use and this varies with heaviness of use and marijuana potency,” she said. “it is possible, but unlikely, that some toxicology tests identified prepregnancy use.”
