I use cannibis, but stopped when I was preggo. I read half a dozen studies, talked to my OB and psychologist abt the research. They were warning against it bc new studies show developmental delays/social problems in kids that don't show up until later in childhood. I read at least 2 studies that showed some correlation with babies with delayed motor capabilities and mothers who used while pregnant. But I also found larger studies that didn't really find any correlation at all.

I also read studies abt breastfeeding while using cannibis and again, not a whole lot of research, but overwhelmingly, physicians warn against cannibis use while breastfeeding, yet STILL recommend breastfeeding over not breastfeeding (if mother is using cannibis), because bf'ing impacts the baby more positively than the known cannibis risk to him/her. (Known being operative word).

I expected to read a ton of studies about all the negative risks of cannibis use, and I was aware little research doesn't mean something is safe, but when you're pregnant, you're constantly analyzing risk, down to the lunchmeat debate. I expected that the research that was available would overwhelmingly show cannibis wasn't safe. But, when the larger studies couldn't definitely find correlation, I really started to think about cannibis use and pregnancy differently.

But, still, I didn't use while pregnant. And the biggest reason was, a lot of things can happen in a pregnancy. Miscarriage risk is common. But if one of those common things happened to me or my baby, regardless of the real reason, I would feel too much guilt I caused it. Knowing myself well, I abstained. But I no longer believe it's that risky.

Still, it’s generally frowned upon to be using psychoactive drugs when pregnant, for good reason.

It's literally the first citation in the paper.

Just what I want to know too, what adverse effects?

1. They certainly do cite the reason they consider it bad:

Gunn JK, Rosales CB, Center KE, Nuñez A, Gibson SJ, Christ C, Ehiri JE. Prenatal exposure to cannabis and maternal and child health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open. 2016 Apr 1;6:e009986. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009986. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

2. Studying the impacts of public policy on public health outcomes and establishing causal relationships is not "pointless."

What can be a low-risk fun activity for a grown, 100+ pound adult may very well have serious, lifelong consequences for a tiny pre-human the size of a thumb. It's too bad that people approach weed as some kind of black and white moral imperative instead of a calculated risk.

Ubiquity or normalization does not indicate that an action is correct, however. There are a lot of unknowns with cannabis which is why healthcare does not support its use outside of very specific settings, and pregnancy is known for being fraught with a lot of potential risks even without the addition of substances.

From my perspective, I support the use of substances if medically indicated, but pregnancy is not generally one of those times.