More pregnant women are now lighting up marijuana because, apparently, the baby needs to chill too.
Who cares about pesky things like developmental issues and health risks when you can be the cool mom-to-be, right? Forget prenatal vitamins, a little weed should do the trick. It’s almost like we want to make sure the next generation is born ready for rehab.
Here’s some of what CNN reported on this troubling dynamic and the health risks babies can face:
More and more people are using marijuana before or during pregnancy to ease nausea, pain, stress and help with sleep. In fact, research found that use has more than doubled in the last two decades.
Marijuana use in pregnancy has been linked to such adverse outcomes for the baby as lower birthweight, preterm birth and higher admission rates to neonatal intensive care units.
What about the potential danger to the mother if she uses cannabis before or during early pregnancy? According to a new study, the news there is alarming as well. There’s an increased risk of serious, potentially life-threatening maternal complications such as gestational hypertension and preeclampsia, which are both disorders of high blood pressure.
“Pregnant individuals who used versus did not use cannabis during early pregnancy had a 17% greater risk of gestational hypertension (and) an 8% greater risk of preeclampsia,” said lead study author Kelly Young-Wolff, a research scientist at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Pleasanton, California.
People who used marijuana in early pregnancy also had a “19% greater risk of placental abruption,” Young-Wolff said.