Should women be smoking bongs while pregnant?

Women are currently asking themselves whether they should be smoking bongs while pregnant? Let's look a little advice surrounding this particular question.

According to an article in Forbes December 2017, more and more women are smoking marijuana while pregnant. These women are not concerned with scientific studies or their doctor's medical advice, but rather rely on notions such as "marijuana is just a plant, so it is harmless."

Most commonly pregnant women are smoking marijuana in bongs in order to treat "morning sickness." Apparently "doping yourself up in the morning" seems like a good idea to some weed smoking women.

Research performed by the Kaiser foundation decided that the amount of girls using marijuana while pregnant women jumped from 4 percent to 7 percent from 2009 to 2016.

Yet, studies reveal that marijuana is not risk free. Studies have reported relationships between marijuana smoking and increase limitation and reduced birth weight, especially in women who maintain smoking during delivery or late during pregnancy.

Australian analysis of over 400,000 live births reported that a greater risk for admissions to the neonatal intensive care unit for adolescents exposed prenatally to bud. It is good to consider if it is worth smoking weed, when it could cause your newborn to be very sick and need to spend weeks in intensive care.

At a Brazilian study, vulnerable newborns were "more irritable and less receptive to relaxing, whined more during the exam, and shown more jitteriness and startles compared to non-exposed neonates."

 

The National Library of medicine published a Duke University study that showed women who smoked weed, were 25 percent more likely to give birth to low weight babies, 10 percent more likely to have their infants die in pregnancy and much more likely to have extreme ADD offspring,

Physicians have linked marijuana bong smoking throughout pregnancy with greater risk for pregnancy complications and birth defects.

An Ottawa research study started in 1978 and a Pittsburgh study that began in 1982, both found that marijuana affects specific areas of executive function, which mostly occur in the brain's prefrontal cortex. The studies noted that the these executive functions empower you to make decisions and expect the outcome of your own actions. The children showed weak decision making ability and understanding of cause and effect due to the prenatal pot exposure.

Internestingly the studies also found that the children were not able to focus and therefore could not stop themeselves from fidgeting. This lack of the ability to focus can contirbute to ADD like behavior that can even prevent the child from concentrating in school or later in a career.

When the kids were four years old they showed significant differences in the executive function of offspring of mothers who smoked dope, in comparison to children of abstaining mothers.

Experts say exposure to THC can affect a baby's brain development. This may result in: unexpected responses to visual stimuli, higher-pitched cry, trembling. 

Some say that smoking weed while pregnant may be less damaging than alcohol. However, both drugs put your baby at risk. Saying that one dangerous drug has fewer side effects than another is a very poor reason to smoke a bong while pregnant.

In the end it comes down to a simple question. Bong smoking pregnant women should ask themselves: "Is it good for my baby to get high in my womb?" THC the active ingredient in marijuana crosses over the placenta and into the baby when the mother uses the drug. The baby is then exposed to the drug and all its side effects.

 

References:

 

U.S. National Library of Medicine

 

Forbes.com, December 12, 2017
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2017/12/27/marijuana-use-during-pregnancy-heres-how-much-it-has-risen/#38fde75b58bf