Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Up to one-third of pregnant women do not believe cannabis is harmful to their fetus, according to a new review by UBC [(The University of British Columbia)] researchers.
In some cases, women perceived a lack of communication from their health care providers about the risks of cannabis as an indication that the drug is safe to use during pregnancy.
The findings are outlined in a new review, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, in which UBC researchers sought to identify the latest evidence on women's perspectives on the health aspects of cannabis use during pregnancy and post-partum and whether their perceptions influence decision-making about using the drug.
"Our research suggests that, over the past decade, more women seem to be using cannabis during pregnancy than ever before, even though evidence of its safety is limited and conflicting," said lead author Hamideh Bayrampour, assistant professor in the UBC department of family practice and affiliate investigator at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute. "As many jurisdictions around the world, including Canada, legalize cannabis, it's becoming increasingly important for public health officials to understand perceptions of cannabis use and to increase awareness of the health concerns around its use, especially for pregnant women."
Journal Reference:
Hamideh Bayrampour, Mike Zahradnik, Sarka Lisonkova, Patti Janssen. Women's perspectives about cannabis use during pregnancy and the postpartum period: An integrative review. Preventive Medicine, 2019; 119: 17 DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2018.12.002
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @12:19PM (2 children)
if it's not the third that carries the baby, what's the problem?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday January 24 2019, @05:59PM
The problem is that most of the body carries the baby, and is therefore in pain/discomfort, and asking for the pot.
Since it's "UP TO one third", maybe it's acceptable if you count the arms, the neck, and the left ear only.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Friday January 25 2019, @03:57AM
Joking aside, this is exactly what you'd expect to get from cannabis prohibition. Since it's an evil illegal drug, there's little to no research on its effects on unborn children, and doctors generally can't talk about it with their patients for the same reason. This is a problem caused by cannabis prohibition, and can't really be addressed without admitting that prohibition doens't work and ending it.
And I'm saying that not as any kind of pro-legalisation crusader, but simply out of common sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @12:22PM (9 children)
Whether prospective mothers choose organic, vegan, 420 or alcohol-rich diets, the choice is theirs and theirs alone.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday January 24 2019, @03:56PM
Sure, fine, that's consistent with what we do vis-a-vis cigarettes and alcohol, which are both detrimental to development. But the ignorance of harms maybe is the government's job to help reduce?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @06:03PM (7 children)
OK, fine. Then what? Condemn the child to a lack of government assistance to deal with the problems caused by the mother's behavior? Either the government provides no support and has no say, or the government provides some help and has some say. Asking society to keep its hands off at your convenience is inconsistent.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday January 24 2019, @06:37PM (4 children)
He was making an abortion reference.
I feel like we should be able decide things are in grey areas instead of this black and white everything morality.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday January 24 2019, @10:13PM (3 children)
If a woman wants to do things that might be harmful to the fetus, and doesn't want government regulation prohibiting such bad choices, then please don't expect society to pay for the child's birth defects.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @02:25PM (2 children)
Does this include having a child in the first place?
When the NDIS was put in (look it up) a couple of disabled people said that it was great because their children would be covered.
Run that through again. Society, read: stupid arguing dick measuring politicians, put in this safety net for people who were disabled. Okay. All good so far? We are "rich" so the theory is that we can pay to provide for these people. The method sucks but the theory is sound. Pity we can't afford it, but that is a different problem.
Fine.
But.
We already have generational dole bludgers. Going back five generations in some families.
Two people announcing an intention to bring (what is most likely) disabled children into the world because society will pay for it boils my blood.If they want children then fine. They can pay for them. Just like anyone else.
If someone is unlucky enough to be hit by a car then sure we should help.
If people decide to walk in front of a car or push others then no we shouldn't.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday January 26 2019, @03:50AM (1 child)
I get what you are going for there but what about those tax exemptions parents get per kid. I mean i love my three little deductions but i am also fine if we get rid of the child deduction to take the burden of raising kids from the state.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 26 2019, @02:37PM
What now? How does this make any sense? What is taxed is the household income of a family unit. The tax bracket is determined by the earnings of that unit, divided by the number of people in that unit. The child just added one more person to that unit, so the tax bracket is lower per person, so it should be taxed less. Diapers are not tax deductible idiot - we simply pay less percentage tax if we earn less. Have you ever seen a tax return? Retard.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @06:46PM (1 child)
Compulsory abortion if the foetus is predicted to require a disproportionate amount of government support unless the family demonstrates capacity to meet its needs (perhaps by setting aside a bond or maybe a health savings account).
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday January 25 2019, @06:53AM
No, no, you have to say it in German to have the proper effect...and don't bend those knees!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday January 24 2019, @12:39PM (8 children)
Some women smoke and drink and even do hard drugs while pregnant. Some people are stupid. News at 11:00.
It's a shame that their kids pay the price, but what can you do?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday January 24 2019, @07:19PM (6 children)
The previous story on this site is about how anti-vaxxers are causing harm to the whole community, so yeah. People believe all sorts of nonsense, and some of it is harmful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @08:14PM (5 children)
Autism has a far more severe impact on quality of life than a few weeks' case of chicken pox.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday January 24 2019, @08:45PM (1 child)
Autism has a far more severe impact on quality of life than a few weeks' case of chicken pox.
How is that relevant? If you develop chickenpox, the risk of death is non-zero, especially if you are immunocompromised. Most people survive, that is true, but it is a more serious disease in adults, and having had chickenpox as a child does not prevent you from getting it reactivated as an adult aka shingles (which can cause permanent nerve damage). There is absolutely no evidence that autism is caused by vaccination. Anyone who says otherwise is either wilfully ignorant, mentally incapable, or looking to make a quick buck from credulous and gullible marks.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday January 25 2019, @01:31AM
Usually the standard of debate on Soylent is not too bad. There are people I disagree with, and sometimes I think they're wrong, and sometimes their views are informed more by their small worldview, but they can make an argument that's worth at least thinking about.
The autism comment is a new low however.
You can't argue with stupid, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday January 24 2019, @10:15PM
What does Autism have to do with this? The topic was about vaccinations.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @08:00AM (1 child)
You're right. I'm pretty happy about being autistic, it's you normal folks I don't get. How can you be happy?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 26 2019, @02:42PM
by being attractive, being able to socialize well, and by getting laid by attractive women on a regular basis. isn't it time for you to go clean the cum off your sock and order food delivery?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 26 2019, @08:40PM
Since that behaviour causes developmental problems, it is effectively child-abuse. So what you can do is remove their child from them and charge them with child-abuse*. Having a child is a choice, if you aren't prepared to properly take care of a child, then you shouldn't have one, losing the child and being incarcerated for a spell should give incentive to either give up the harmful behaviour, use contraception or have an abortion.
*Change the law, if the current ones aren't sufficient.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @12:44PM (7 children)
common sense:
1. pregnant woman smoking cannabis is most likely harmful to the baby, because any sort of particulate pollution is certainly harmful to mother; rule of thumb is smoking cannabis is worse than smoking tobacco since cannabis will be unfiltered.
2. pregnant women chewing tobacco or cannabis? not sure. check what chemicals go into the blood, then check the influence on baby development. same goes for eating/drinking cannabis-derived products. other chemicals: epidurals are probably fine because they happen once; I doubt any doctor would allow constant epidural usage during pregnancy. so maybe it's fine if you want to smoke while giving birth (but my guess is you want clean lungs to breath properly).
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snow on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:07PM
+1 on the filter! I made my wife a special filter for her crack pipe when she was pregnant. Made a difference. Bigly!
.....what?
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Thursday January 24 2019, @06:35PM (4 children)
Because people chain smoke cannabis, right? Unlike cigarettes where they down 2 packs/day.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday January 24 2019, @07:03PM (3 children)
You'd be surprised. Some people smoke pot like some people smoke cigarettes.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @05:50AM (1 child)
I've saturated as much as Chong. You get high, then if you smoke more... nothing happens. After a while I just gave it up for a rainy day WITHOUT chasing the dragon by going to harder drugs. All that bullshit from righteous nutjobs that weed leads to LSD or whatever is just methane fumes spewing out their ass with no proof. It's the same nutjobs that think an unprotected border is a good thing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @02:30PM
Racist! Stopping people at your countries' border is just pure racism! Jesus said so!
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Friday January 25 2019, @07:10PM
Some people eat airplanes.(really, google it) This doesn't mean that the average use case is anywhere
near the average use case for cigarettes. Cigarettes are really a pretty lame drug you have to do it all the time,
it kills you, and it doesn't mess you up enough that you can't drive.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday January 24 2019, @08:49PM
rule of thumb is smoking cannabis is worse than smoking tobacco since cannabis will be unfiltered.
Your rule of thumb would be incorrect: Harm Reduct J. 2005; 2: 21. "Cannabis and tobacco smoke are not equally carcinogenic" [nih.gov]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @01:55PM (9 children)
If $x = "Cannabis is Harmful to their Fetus," is there evidence for harm? Cannabis has been used for thousands of years. If I had to guess, the existing studies likely do not control for income level and poverty, as this is a common technique to get FUD studies to demonstrate why the working class needs draconian prohibitions.
However, my real concern is if $x = "electric universe theory!" Just imagine all those pregnant women contemplating obvious kludges like dark matter and dark energy and the irreconcilability of quantum mechanics with general relativity when there already exists a simple, elegant, and wrong solution!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 24 2019, @03:27PM (2 children)
That IS the proper question - is there evidence that cannabis is harmful to half-baked babies? There are tons of stuff that are supposed to be harmful. I suppose some of them really are harmful. Alcohol? Well, if Mom is a hard core alcoholic, who stays pickled all through the pregnancy, I expect to see some effect on Junior. She had three glasses of wine during her nine month pregnancy? Phhhht - if they child has congenital deformities, let's not blame the wine, alright? There's some OTHER thing at work here.
But, we're talking about cannabis, right? Well, if Mom buys twenty tons of cannabis, and chain smokes her way through her pregnancy, then little Sally G. (I never did find out what the letter G stood for, but I'm sure it wasn't "good") might develop some kind of problem. But, if Mom takes a couple hits, three or four times, then what?
It's not like we're talking about dangerous stuff here. I TOLD my wife that she shouldn't eat all those hot peppers when she was pregnant, but did she listen? I swear, she burnt the brains out of two of the kids!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:00PM (1 child)
All drugs are bad, m'kay! You are just supposed to accept this fact!
See this documentary about how bad drugs are:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028346/ [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:45PM
All drugs are bad, unless Big Pharma is making millions off of those drugs.
FTFY
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday January 24 2019, @06:40PM (5 children)
Agreed, the summary even says "evidence of its safety is limited and conflicting"
So, we have limited but conflicting evidence that marijuana smoking is safe, but dear lord, 1/3rd of women actually believe it?!? The Horror!
I imagine we could sit down an make a list of dozens of common food additives and environmental toxins that we *know* are unsafe for developing fetuses. But yes, lets get worked up about women using a recreational drug that we're not completely certain is completely safe.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday January 24 2019, @07:47PM (4 children)
I would say that taking any drug recreationally while pregnant is being irresponsible with the health of the unborn child and that's worth getting a little worked up over.
However, medicinal use of drugs is often necessary during pregnancy and choosing one where the "evidence of its safety is limited and conflicting" is not necessarily irresponsible when the alternative is one that has been proven to increase risk of miscarriage and birth defects, which is the case with some prescription morning sickness drugs.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 24 2019, @08:31PM (3 children)
>I would say that taking any drug recreationally while pregnant is being irresponsible with the health of the unborn child and that's worth getting a little worked up over.
So is eating processed food, or breathing the inescapable car exhaust, or not exercising enough - things we *know* are unhealthy for the fetus.
"Limited and conflicting" safety results suggest that any hazards are almost certainly minor, if they exist at all. So the risks probably fall far down the lists of things most everyone already knowingly (or ignorantly) subject their unborn children to. Should you avoid cannabis to be extra sure? Sure, if you like. But there's probably several dozen other things you should avoid that would do a lot more good.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by slinches on Thursday January 24 2019, @08:57PM (2 children)
Taking a drug recreationally implies that there's no medical reason to take it. It's exposing the child to potential harm for fun. That is irresponsible.
The other things you mentioned are either unavoidable or may not be available to some women all of the time. Responsibility is defined relative to the available options and the motivations for the choice, not the potential for harm directly.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 24 2019, @09:30PM (1 child)
Unavailable? Processed foods are entirely avoidable, and actually come at a significant cost over healthy food. The use of household cleaning supplies is completely voluntary. Need I go on?
I suspect your problem is with the word "drug". I assume you're equally adamant that expectant mothers avoid coffee right? And aspirin? After all, those are drugs with known dangerous consequences to the fetus, along with many others. How about bacon? That shit is loaded with not only drugs, but known toxic chemicals.
Now sure, you may want to err on the side of caution as cannabis has not yet been conclusively proven safe, but to pretend it's some great potential threat while ignoring the multitude of much greater known threats is disingenuous at best.
It's not possible to eliminate all risk, the best you can do is to avoid the worst ones and mitigate those you can't avoid. So, once you've eliminated what you can from the top 10 or 20 risk factors, and accepted the rest, stop worrying. There's nothing meaningful to be gained from eliminating a 0.1% risk factor after accepting one at 10%. Not unless you're eliminating such things by the hundreds - which nobody does.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday January 24 2019, @10:13PM
I was focusing on cannabis use because that's the topic at hand, not because it's a drug or that I think it's the highest risk activity possible.
My problem is that you seem to be dismissing it as harmless enough to indulge in for fun. We don't know whether the risk really is low enough for that yet. Once we've established the risk level, then I will be exactly as okay with using cannabis as anything else at the same risk level. If it's similar in risk to a cup of coffee, go ahead and have an occasional cup/toke. If it's more similar to alcohol, I'd recommend avoiding it entirely. Until then, I'll err on the side of caution and say stay away unless there's a medical need for it and other proven low risk options are not effective.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @03:44PM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @06:51PM
Good thing you're an incel neet virgin who will never get a 3-dimensional girl pragnent.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday January 24 2019, @07:48PM (3 children)
My doctor didn't ever tell me that eating belladonna might be dangerous, so I get it's safe, right? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @09:12PM
It will make your eyes kawaii!!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 24 2019, @10:20PM (1 child)
I'll tell you the same thing about belladonna that I heard over and over at cannabis dispensaries when I visited Colorado in 2017.
"It's all natural!"
Soylent Green is all natural!
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @08:05AM
Well it is.. ALL that EXIST is natural. Nature is ALL that EXISTS.