Is Smoking Pot During Pregnancy Healthy?

Increasing numbers of women have begun to smoke marijuana regularly. They smoke marijuana on a daily basis, in a manner not unlike that of their male counterparts, and continue to smoke during pregnancy and the breast-feeding period.

Marijuana use during pregnancy is discouraged in prenatal clinics and through government-sponsored prevention programs. Current prohibition practices prevent mothers from speaking openly with investigators about their cannabis usage during pregnancy.

Fear of repercussion is heavy.

Yet according to Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica: An Ethnographic Study, mothers who use cannabis during and after pregnancy perform better than those who didn't use marijuana. Newborns of mothers who used cannabis also appeared to be more socially adjusted than those who didn't.

The consumption of marijuana during pregnancy by Jamaican women is not necessarily indicative of a mother's lack of concern about the health and development of her infant.

But by belief that marijuana has health-rendering properties.

Women use it as a vehicle for dealing with the difficult circumstances surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.

For instance, 19 of the marijuana smokers in the sample reported that it increased their appetites throughout the prenatal period and / or relieved the nausea of pregnancy. Fifteen reported using it to relieve fatigue and provide rest during pregnancy.

All the mothers considered the effects of marijuana on nausea and fatigue to be good for both themselves and their infants.

Feelings of depression and desperation attending motherhood were alleviated by both social and private smoking. Mothers who used marijuana showed better physiological stability.

The results of the comparison of babies of the heavy-marijuana-using mothers and those of the nonusing mothers were even more striking.

The heavily exposed babies were more socially responsive and were more autonomically stable at 30 days than their matched counterparts. Their alertness was higher; their motor and autonomic systems were more robust; they were less irritable; they were less likely to demonstrate any imbalance of tone.

Babies were judged to be more rewarding for caregivers than the babies of non pot smoking mothers at 1 month of age. Conventional wisdom would suggest that mothers who are long-term marijuana users are less likely to create optimal caregiving environments for their babies.

However, where marijuana is culturally integrated, and where heavy use of the substance by women is associated with a higher level of education and greater financial independence, it seems that Jamaican mothers have the capacity to create a postnatal environment that is supportive of baby development.

Continue reading here: The 10 Most Successful Potheads on the Planet... Cool Enough to Admit It

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