Marijuana use among pregnant women is rising, and so are concerns:
I'm relatively new to Oregon, but one of the ways I know I'm starting to settle in is my ability to recognize marijuana shops. Some are easy. But others, with names like The Agrestic and Mr. Nice Guy, are a little trickier to identify for someone who hasn't spent much time in a state that has legalized marijuana.
A growing number of states have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana. At the same time, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding are using the drug in increasing numbers. A 2017 JAMA study described both survey results and urine tests of nearly 280,000 pregnant women in Northern California, where medical marijuana was legalized in 1996. The study showed that in 2009, about 4 percent of the women tested used marijuana. In 2016, about 7 percent of women did. Those California numbers may be even higher now, since recreational marijuana became legal there this year.
Some of those numbers may be due in part to women using marijuana to treat their morning sickness, a more recent study by some of the same researchers suggests. Their report, published August 20 in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that pregnant women with severe nausea and vomiting were 3.8 times more likely to use marijuana than pregnant women without morning sickness.
So some pregnant women are definitely using the drug, and exposing their fetuses to it, too. Ingredients in marijuana are known to make their way to fetuses by crossing the placenta during pregnancy (and by entering breast milk after the baby is born). But what actually happens when those marijuana compounds arrive?
That's the question the American Academy of Pediatrics grapples with in a clinical report published in the August issue of Pediatrics. In an effort to provide guidance to caregivers and women, the AAP sums up the existing scientific literature on how marijuana affects mothers and babies.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:43AM (3 children)
I raised two stepsons, whose father introduced them to Mary J at very young ages, "To keep them quiet". Those boys turned out fine. Just ask them, or their father. -rolleyes-
Oh - if you're wondering, yes, I'm serious. Dad couldn't be bothered to discipline his kids, but he had no problem with supplying them with smoke. The kids got high, and mellow, and they stopped annoying Dad. That's some super parenting skill, right there, amirite?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Sulla on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:50AM
Everytime i feel like a bad father for getting off work late and having to make a subpar dinner I am going to remember this.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Interesting) by captain normal on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:10AM (1 child)
Makes sense to me. If you're a millennial, Your mom and/or your grandma likely smoked pot when pregnant.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:00AM
I won't argue that claim, but I'll offer a counter example. When my wife was pregnant, she abstained from everything suspected of harming her babies. Further, she reduced her risks of being in an automobile accident, or other accidents. I can't possibly say how many women alter their lifestyles while pregnant, but my wife did everything possible to ensure that her babies were born healthy. Of course, those women who already lead the healthiest lifestyles possible won't have to make alterations to those lifestyles while pregnant.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:05AM (4 children)
What is rising, now that it's legal to smoke, are women willing to admit they smoke while preggers. Kinda like the sudden bump in baby boomers who are now trying weed for the first time in 40 years. They've all been smoking all along, but now they're willing to admit it.
This should be a huge hit for government credibility, keeping the evil weed schedule 1 meant nobody could research it to find out if it should, in fact, be schedule 1.
Then again, I'm a child of the 70s for whom the government hasn't had any credibility since high school, but damn, I wish more of my peers had half the brains I do.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by bussdriver on Wednesday September 12 2018, @12:16PM (2 children)
Most likely, with heavy biased studies they will find something legitimately of concern (which in the end amounts to nothing significant.) But then the risks caused by tons of normal safe foods are likely no worse, just less studied.
It may sound like a big human experiment; but what isn't? We'll see... although we've heavily studied pot for decades with huge bias and a great deal of lying propaganda-- it's probably the most safe food out there. They've looked into pregnancy and pot for decades already and you know we would have had any slight risks hammered into us in school if they found anything they could twist it.
THE REAL PROBLEM: By making pot illegal and expensive we've funded the creation of many man-made mutant varieties of the plant much faster than would ever happen if it was legal all this time. As we've done with all other profitable plants, we've experimented on the population with variations with unpredictable side effects we are still not aware of; where the healthy skeptics are smeared as Luddites for wanting GMO labeling. We've created versions of the plant that are not healthy or safe; when it was literally just a cheap weed that you had to fight to kill off there was little incentive to mess around with it. Sure, it would happen but far more slowly and with results that could be responded to. Hell, we have expensive legal pills based upon pot with quite a list of side affects because we couldn't just use the natural plant (which has an anti-psychotic to balance itself out... unless you remove that by playing god thinking it's only the THC that matters.)
FYI: I have no interest in even trying pot or coffee. But I will defend your rights from being infringed upon. It is your right, nobody can take that away from you; only infringe upon you exercising them.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:17PM (1 child)
Sorry, but marijuana is specifically known (i.e., chosen because) it interferes with neuron function. So it's quite reasonable to suppose it might affect developing neurons. It's also been implicated in interfering with late neuron pruning towards the end of the teens and up until around 23 (varies with the individual). The proofs may not be robust, but the experimental conditions were quite constrained, so while you can't rely on them, they're the current best guess.
So I would rank marijuana as much more risky than, say, rhubarb.
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(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:29AM
Know a guy in Portland who has numerous horror stories about teens and the far-stronger "new pot" -- says one of the more common bad reactions is to believe something is crawling under your skin, and take a knife to yourself to get rid of the imaginary worm. Or to suddenly believe some protruding part (fingers, ears, penis, etc.) isn't yours, and cut it off, leading to fun times in the emergency room. Also recall a study from an article hereabouts, that found pot may not harm normal folks, but tends to trigger latent psychosis. Considering how we've been celebrating mental disorders in recent decades, I wonder if this isn't all one thing.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:47PM
I'd suggest that the majority of the population is generally abides by the law most of the time, so now that it's legal, people's curiosity can be explored.
As an example, imagine if the travel ban to Cuba was lifted. Do you think that the sudden influx of tourists would be people who were "going there all along, but now they're willing to admit to it?"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:19AM (2 children)
Slightly related
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4068964/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:22AM
Ya. 100% would rather have a stoner wife than an alcoholic.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:26AM
I'm ugly, if I didn't get them drunk first they wouldn't fuck me.
/ runs for the hills
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mth on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:26AM (3 children)
From the last link:
We know smoking tobacco during pregnancy is bad for the fetus, so I'd be more worried about pregnant women smoking at all than about what exactly they are smoking.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:05AM (2 children)
Over the years, I've read a number of claims that smoking pot simply doesn't carry the same risks that smoking tobacco does. No nicotine, for starters, and the tars are entirely different. Add to that, no one just chain smokes pot all day every day.
I think that IF a pregnant woman is going to smoke anything at all, then pot is the healthier choice by far. Future studies may demolish that belief, of course. Maybe the THC does affect the embryo's brain in some way. If not the THC, then may some other component of pot smoke. It's a damned shame that no on was permitted to research this stuff for the past ~80 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:11PM
In the beginning, no one just chain smoked tobacco all day every day either.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:37AM
I've seen the same claim, but the only one approaching data pointed out that the difference is mostly quantity, and that in fact the tars from pot are considerably harder on the lungs (bigger stickier particles, harder for the lungs to get rid of) . So if you chainsmoked pot all day every day, you'd probably do yourself more lung damage.
Considering the study that found pot can trigger latent psychosis, I'd be rather more concerned about pot vs a developing brain, and begin to wonder if some of today's ...youthful problems... might have been influenced by THC in utero.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:23AM (1 child)
So some pregnant women are definitely using the drug, and exposing their fetuses to it, too. Ingredients in marijuana are known to make their way to fetuses by crossing the placenta during pregnancy (and by entering breast milk after the baby is born). But what actually happens when those marijuana compounds arrive?
What happens is they act on estrogenic receptors. That's probably not a big deal for female fetuses aside from the smoke effects of CO2, lowered O2, and so on unless it gets in the way enough to actually block the hormone. However, for male fetuses the effects are probably other than desirable.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:43AM
As I was about to speculate above when I got distracted and clicked Submit... maybe the soyboy generation is hereby explained.
High levels of phytoestrogens in the diet during pregnancy are known to cause a variety of birth defects in male infants.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:59AM (6 children)
The Concerns are rising?? They are RISING? OMG stop the press everyone, the Concerns are rising. What kind of bullshit throwaway line is that? I haven't had my daily bowel movement yet, and the Concerns are rising.
Everywhere people are going to be concerned about other people's business. Smoking has been legal for ever, and pregnant women have been smoking when they shouldn't have been. Why are the concerns only rising now that some of them are admitting to smoking marijuana? Are they seriously trying to tell me that women who otherwise would not smoke during pregnancy are now suddenly smoking dope?
And they don't even know what actually happens when the compounds enter the breastmilk or fetus. It's all just conjecture. My god but they'll never end the scaremongering about marijuana will they? If they are truly concerned, then do a proper study, wait for actual results and then tell us you were right all along.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:06AM (4 children)
Yeah about that.... you know that colored underlined text in the summary? The ones that look LIKE THIS [jamanetwork.com]? That's called a hyperlink. If you click it, it links you a different page. Amazing, I know.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday September 14 2018, @08:01AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Friday September 14 2018, @01:36PM (2 children)
And yet the other article [aappublications.org] linked in TFS has no less than 97 references listed with along their pmid and it takes less than a minute to find them.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday September 14 2018, @04:48PM (1 child)
They found that women who used MJ were anemic and their infants showed a decrease in birth weight. However, higher up in the linked abstract:
This is exactly what I was saying in my first post. These women who use MJ are already the kind of person who'll smoke regular cigarettes, are poorer and already have some other existing stressor. All of these things already explain the anemia and lower birth weights.
This is why I call bullshit on the whole thing. They are suddenly "Concerned" now that MJ is added into the mix!
Where's the evidence that MJ _alone_ is something to be concerned about?
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Friday September 14 2018, @10:16PM
In the references you didn't read like this [embopress.org] or this [sciencedirect.com].
We've always been concerned about how substance use affects fetal development, which is why every gynecologist ever will inform pregnant women that they should stop using certain substances such as tobacco.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:17PM
There is a legitimate concern about the rise of marijuana smoking.
Those people could be smoking tobacco products instead.
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