It seems almost natural to think when a woman gets pregnant she would ditch the cigarettes and even marijuana.
According to a study recently published in the journal Addiction, women who are using marijuana during their pregnancies are putting their babies at risk.
Babies born to women who were heavy cannabis users during pregnancy are more likely to have health problems, including premature birth and death within a year of birth says the study, which compared things to babies born to women who did not use cannabis during pregnancy.
The analysis had covered nearly 5 million California women who gave birth between 2001 and 2012.
“Because many states in the U.S. now have approved medical and/or recreational cannabis, we recommend regulatory approaches targeting pregnant women, such as developing guidelines for physicians to appropriately recommend medical cannabis and communicating potential risks of prenatal cannabis use,” said the study’s lead author, Yuyan Shi, an associate professor of health policy and health economics at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California, San Diego.
Shi has also said that another approach could be to require dispensaries to display warning signs and for cannabis products to include warning labels of potential dangers to fetuses.
As part of the study, Shi and her colleagues reviewed the medical records of 4.83 million mother-infant pairs, which included 20,237 in which the delivery record noted that the woman had a diagnosis of either “cannabis dependence” or “nondependent cannabis abuse.” This suggests much more than just occasional use.
The marijuana users had been matched with 40,474 pregnant women whose records showed no indications of cannabis use, by factors such as demographics, physical health conditions, mental health conditions and behavioral health conditions.
Comparing infant outcomes from the two groups, they found that babies born to women who used cannabis frequently were 6 percent more likely to be born premature, 13 percent more likely to have a low birthweight and 35 percent more likely to die within their first year.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which provided funding for the research, has aid “In the past, effects of smoking during pregnancy have not made an attempt to quantify whether it was regular use or use in high doses.”
“We are trying to track their marijuana uses pretty carefully and we’re also doing drug testing to make sure the women aren’t using any other substances,” the study’s lead researcher, Natalia Kleinhans, a neuropsychologist and an associate professor at the University of Washington, told NBC News.
There will be a comparison group of expectant women who aren’t using marijuana, but might have a prescription for an anti-nausea medication.
The researchers aim to do brain scans six to nine months after the babies are born to see if the impact of cannabis left something on the babys’ brains.
“Marijuana use is going to stimulate those receptors at a crucial stage of development,” Volkow said. “That may be part of the reason we are seeing those changes.”
“Marijuana has not been evaluated for safety, and we know it does have potential negative effects on the newborn,” Volkow said.
