Bhang Use by Pregnant Women on the Rise

 

There is an alarming number of women who are taking Marijuana when pregnant. This habit is increasing very fast among young adults and teenagers. This is according to the recent U.S. study. Among those individuals who are taking Marijuana are women of ages 18 to 24 years.

How Serious Is the Rise?

Statistics reveal that Marijuana use in pregnant women raised from around 13% in the year 2009 to about 22% in the year 2016. During this same period, the proportion of women aged 18 to 24 rose by 9%. Throughout all age groups, marijuana use increased from around 4% during the start of the study to around 7% by the end of the study.

Previous studies have found that the increased use of marijuana by young U.S. women has greatly increased over time. These studies did not include objective measures of verified marijuana use and this resulted in underestimation.

According to the senior author Dr. Nancy Goler from Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland, their study focused on key limitations of the previous studies by looking at the trends in the use of marijuana during the prenatal period. Researchers indicated that marijuana is one of the widely used illegal drugs during pregnancy.

What Does The Study Reveal About This Issue?

Previous studies about the effects of marijuana on pregnant women stated that the drug use may inhibit or even impair neurodevelopment and fetal growth. The researchers used data from over 279,000 pregnant women. Marijuana screening was done on them as part of normal prenatal care.

Then researchers required the women fill questionnaire inquiring about the drug use when they were around 8 months pregnant. They also did extensive lab tests to screen drug use. Most of the time the lab tests showed that the women didn’t reveal on the questionnaire about the use of any drug, however, those who passed the screening test reported the drug use.

In the total number of women who appeared to be positive on drug use, 55% of them failed the test but had denied drug use on the questionnaire. Additional 16% passed the screening test early during pregnancy might not reflect what might happen later in life.

Researchers indicated that there are in initial stage to understand marijuana use in pregnancy. The results from studies in Northern California may not reflect the rates at which the drug is being used in other parts of the country where the tread is still very alarming.

What Are The Consequences?

Bonn-Miller added that the more they study about cannabis use by women who are pregnant the more they realize how dangerous and harmful it can be. The legalization of medical marijuana makes people think that it might not be dangerous when used during pregnancy that’s why its use may be on the rise.

Conditions such as preterm labor, fetal growth restriction, stillbirth or lightweight infant are relatable to use of marijuana. All the developmental effects on an unborn child also depends on the frequency at which pregnant women use marijuana.