[HN Gopher] Prenatal cannabis exposure associated with mental di... ___________________________________________________________________ Prenatal cannabis exposure associated with mental disorders in children Author : lame-robot-hoax Score : 103 points Date : 2022-09-12 21:48 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nih.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nih.gov) | pier25 wrote: | I know my mother smoked cannabis when she was pregnant back in | the 70s (hippie parents etc). Maybe it wasn't related to that, | but I did experience a number of mental disorders from my | childhood to my late 20s. | endisneigh wrote: | Weed is bad for you, what a shocker. Like all drugs you have to | weigh the positive effects with the negative. Generally it's bad | to do most rec drugs if pregnant or around kids. | 29athrowaway wrote: | Cannabis is a vasodilator, among many other things. | dekken_ wrote: | Water is bad for you in sufficient quantities. | endisneigh wrote: | what does water have to do with anything? | dekken_ wrote: | The point is that weed isn't _just_ bad for you, it depends | on your condition and the dosage. | staringback wrote: | Do you need weed to survive? | jjulius wrote: | It's a loose comparison, it doesn't have to be perfect | and I'm pretty sure you understand the point they're | trying to make. | Waterluvian wrote: | Weed isn't "bad for you" as pointed out by your second | sentence. Indeed, it has effects and you need to cost benefit | weigh the effects. | dr_dshiv wrote: | " 6 exposures (unplanned pregnancy; maternal alcohol, marijuana, | and tobacco use early in pregnancy; pregnancy complications; and | birth complications) independently associated with significant | but small increases in CBCL total score. Among these 6, none | increased the odds of crossing the threshold for clinically | significant symptoms by itself. However, odds of exceeding this | threshold became significant with 2 exposures (OR = 1.86, 95% CI | 1.47-2.36), and increased linearly with each level of exposure | (OR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.31-1.47), up to 3.53-fold for >=4 exposures | versus none" | ttpphd wrote: | Huh. Weird that from that result the focus of the conversation | is on cannabis. | 29athrowaway wrote: | Consuming weed during pregnancy is against Tupac's Thug Life | principles. | version_five wrote: | "Don't get me started / my mother smoked so goddamn much when | she was pregnant I'm surprised I ain't retarded"? | lame-robot-hoax wrote: | Full title that wouldn't fit: Prenatal cannabis exposure | associated with mental disorders in children that persist into | early adolescence | metamateme wrote: | How could you possibly control for the major confounder of | "having the kind of parent who would intentionally subject their | unborn child to THC"? | [deleted] | 1-6 wrote: | Why are pregnant women smoking weed to begin with? | gfdsgfdsf wrote: | morning sickness, the alternatives such as zofran come with | their own complications | scythe wrote: | It's about 5% of pregnant women, while about 14% of women | report smoking cannabis, and the rate is significantly higher | under age 55: | | https://news.gallup.com/poll/284135/percentage-americans-smo... | | So probably about 20% of women who may become pregnant smoke | marijuana, and 75% of them stop when pregnant, before adjusting | for whether they are aware of the pregnancy. There are usually | a few irresponsible individuals in any group. | klyrs wrote: | This is a backlash from anti-cannabis disinformation. People | were told lies about how dangerous it is for decades, and now | people don't know what to believe. | Maursault wrote: | I really think all men should withhold all judgement of women, | pregnant or not. | | I also think it is interesting, after at least 10K years of | use, someone noticed recently there is an association with | mental disorders. If it was of any serious concern, it probably | would have been noticed in, say, ancient Rome. Also, even the | adolescent brain, let alone the prenatal brain, is so plastic | as to be able to completely heal from such things as massive | head trauma, but a little weed has degraded them for life. Uh | uh, right. Any studies covering so short a period and making | such grave conclusions immediately draw my skepticism. What are | the chances there is conservative funding and bias behind the | study? Huge. On with the misogynistic persecution of pregnant | women! | diab0lic wrote: | Alcohol has been in use for ~7000 years yet society only | began broadly recognizing it as harmful during pregnancy in | the 1970s. [0] I don't think the form of your argument holds | any weight. Would you make the same claim regarding the use | of alcohol during pregnancy? | | [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26137906/ | someguydave wrote: | Women are not in a vacuum, their decisions impact all the | people and babies around them and those people and babies | have a right to an opinion. | tristor wrote: | > I really think all men should withhold all judgement of | women, pregnant or not. | | No. The right to an opinion and to express it is not | contingent on ones gender or gender expression. It is | perfectly reasonable for people to make observations, conduct | scientific research, form opinions, and discuss those | opinions even if the outcome of such doesn't personally | affect them. And, in point of fact, it's /strictly necessary/ | for societal level issues. | asveikau wrote: | https://www.google.com/search?q=cannabis+psychosis | | People are not making this up. It's a risk that needs to be | weighed. | | Acknowledging this fact is not the same as being in favor of | prohibition or criminalization or saying it'll happen to | everyone. | adamrezich wrote: | I asked a then-pregnant still-weed-smoking coworker of my | fiancee about this, she said "it isn't that bad for the baby, | at least compared to alcohol or meth", and another coworker | (female, roughly same age) agreed that "meth and booze are | really bad for pregnant women, but weed not so much". from the | sound of things (this was on a car trip to a nearby Native | American reservation where the then-pregnant girl's parents | lived), among this strata of people at least, if you get | pregnant, you should definitely stop drinking and consuming | meth, but weed isn't a big deal. no idea how this entered the | public subconscious but there you have it. | throwuxiytayq wrote: | Addiction, self-medication (eg. pain/nausea relief), escapism, | peer pressure. To name a few. | | I used to be sceptical about weed addiction, and then it | happened to me. It was relatively difficult to quit even though | the habit was severely impacting my work and social life. In | the end not having any weed around helped a lot. If you have an | easy endless supply, boy, you're in trouble. | | If you enjoy weed, consider having a strict limit (eg. max 1 | smoke per week). If you smoke every day, you might find | yourself unable to quit when need arises (eg. pregnancy, yours | or your partner's). | mosseater wrote: | Also, you know, doctor recommended medication. And not just | the "weed doctors" do it either, my conservative neurologist | even told me to smoke THC heavy marijuana. | | I smoke every day. It absolutely impacts my work and social | life, as without it I'm a painful ball of irritation that | would have to be on opiates to get anything done. | mcculley wrote: | Presumably, for the same reasons they drink alcohol and consume | caffeine. | | Most parents are not thinking ahead. | asveikau wrote: | I think it's more addictive than people think. I've known a few | people who I think have a problem, but they become violently | confrontational if you say it _might_ be addictive for _some_. | I may get comments and downvotes along these lines. | | I guess some people may also have some exposure from before | they realize they're pregnant. That probably also happens with | things like alcohol. I think I've heard some say that's not a | big issue, though. | xkcd-sucks wrote: | > but they become violently confrontational if you say it | might be addictive for some | | Going out on a limb here but it might be in the same spirit | as a similar response to "Strong encryption is for child | abuse and terrorism" / "Bittorrent is for pirating movies" in | that it's true in some cases but is used as a popular | discourse wedge to promote governmental overreach | pier25 wrote: | When someone mentions addiction people think heroin | addiction, but yeah people can become psychologically | dependent on cannabis too. I know I did, many years ago. | [deleted] | westmeal wrote: | People are nuts. | [deleted] | nth_degree wrote: | It can help with nausea. | ejb999 wrote: | Thalidomide helped with nausea too. | 404mm wrote: | One response I received was: "weed is natural and comes from | the Earth". It's absolutely mind boggling how stupid people can | be. | withinboredom wrote: | And water comes from burning fossil fuels too, but I doubt | that water would be good for you. Ibuprofen comes from the | bark of tree IIRC, but that pill is a lot better than the | soup you'd have to eat to get not nearly the same effect. | Everything is natural. I really hate that argument. | nkozyra wrote: | > Ibuprofen comes from the bark of tree IIRC | | This is salicylic acid, in a number of tree barks but most | abundantly in white willow. | | The medication form is aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid. | 404mm wrote: | In moments when I'm not speechless, I usually just say "and | so does Mercury and Uranium". | vorpalhex wrote: | "So are sharks and volcanoes..." | [deleted] | JamesBarney wrote: | These association studies are near useless. Every positive | behavior and positive outcome are correlated, and every bad | behavior and outcome are correlated. | | Mothers who get high during their pregnancy are different from | mothers who don't. | | A more informed one would be looking at women with seizures that | are treated with cannabis and comparing them to women with the | same disorder who aren't. There are still differences but they'd | be smaller. | scythe wrote: | Unpaywalled paper on the same data, showing findings: | | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... | stefan_ wrote: | And wouldn't you know it, the title does not match the | findings: | | > Among these 6, none increased the odds of crossing the | threshold for clinically significant symptoms by itself. | | The linked article bizarrely focuses on cannabis, but they | looked at "unplanned pregnancies", "maternal alcohol, marijuana | and tobaccos use in early pregnancy", "pregnancy complications" | and "birth complications". The only finding: | | > Children exposed to multiple common, adverse prenatal events | showed dose-dependent increases in broad, clinically | significant psychopathology at age 9-10. | | Where is the article lecturing us about the dangers of | unplanned pregnancies so everyone can kneejerk react to it? | (Also, why is this study mixing in _alcohol_ use, which is of | course already strongly proven to lead to all kinds of | disorders..) | tedivm wrote: | The amount of research over last decade has been huge, even | outside of this. It used to be the only way companies could | research cannabis was by getting really crappy samples from a | government grow house, but with legalization the supply of | research samples and the quality of researchers willing to work | on it has grown considerably. | | This is a direct safety issue. I used to moderator one of the | bigger cannabis subreddits and one of the bigger questions that | always came up was whether it was safe to smoke while pregnant. | The answer I always gave was that we just don't know, and so it | should be avoided. The lack of research though meant that people | couldn't make informed decisions, and the stereotype around | cannabis being safe meant that people did not always err on the | side of caution. Now there is something concrete we can point to. | VWWHFSfQ wrote: | Common sense says you shouldn't be smoking anything while | you're pregnant and marijuana is no different. | | But your response was "we don't know"? I feel like I see this | kind of stuff from weed people a lot. "Well there's no proof | that it's _not safe_ ".. | | irresponsible | flatiron wrote: | I think a lot of people think it's "safe" is it's been used | for thousands of years and has relatively well tolerated. | It's nice to get more specific info like this though. | Bud wrote: | Why are you intentionally misrepresenting the very clear | comment you are responding to? | fennecfoxen wrote: | Just as a baseline, we know smoking cannabis is unsafe | because it's _smoke_ going into your _lungs_. That's never | healthy. _Any_ particulate inhalation is bad for your lungs. | tedivm wrote: | If that's what you think my response says then you didn't | read it at all. I literally said that I would tell people "we | just don't know, and so it should be avoided". Not "we don't | know". I said "We don't know, so avoid it". That's a very | different statement than what you're quoting- literally the | exact opposite of your "it's not safe" quote. | ironick09 wrote: | The only thing that's irresponsible is your reading | comprehension, re-read their comment. | jjulius wrote: | >... weed people... | | Your bias is showing. | mc32 wrote: | I wonder if it has impact on sperm integrity and men who are | reproducing should abstain for some time as well prior to | inseminating. | michaelwww wrote: | I read this right after I got back from the marijuana store where | a pregnant woman was buying weed. It made me uncomfortable. It | just seems risky to me to take intoxicants while the babies brain | is forming. | tedivm wrote: | I think the real problem- and something I'm hoping more | research can help with- is that marijuana is a medicine for a | lot of people. It prevents seizures, reduces or stops | migraines, and (this one is really important considering the | context) reduces nausea. Sometimes people have to balance | between a bunch of crappy options. | | This isn't always the case, of course, but it's hard to judge | what someone is going through from the outside so I tend to | just give the benefit of the doubt. What would be nice would be | if we could figure out _why_ cannabis helps with these issues | and provide a more direct treatment. | kayodelycaon wrote: | A lot of medications need to be discontinued during | pregnancy. | | All of the women I know who are bipolar absolutely do not | want to become pregnant because they would need to stop | taking all of their medication. | tedivm wrote: | Yeah- and with a lack of research available there are a lot | of people who limited their cannabis intake or didn't | reduce at all during pregnancy. | | A lot of this comes down to balancing risks- which is | absolutely something that should be done while consulting a | doctor. If someone is so nausea they can't even maintain | weight, let alone gain that healthy baby weight, then it's | possible a small amount of marijuana may be more healthy | for them despite the risks. | | To be clear though I'm just advocating a lot more research | on the subject, and personally would err on the side of | caution when it comes to things that aren't heavily | researched. | tomatotomato37 wrote: | To add to that it isn't just "serious" prescription | medications that may need to be discontinued; a variety of | OTCs from Aspirin to PeptoBismol can also pose a risk to | anyone expecting. | withinboredom wrote: | Yes, in moderation, weed is probably harmless and maybe good | for you. Getting high (aka, poisoning yourself), not so much. | Bud wrote: | Why do you assume that any and all forms of getting high | involve poisoning? | surement wrote: | Getting high and poisoning yourself are not the same thing. | Psychedelic mushrooms are not weak versions of toxic ones. | pitaj wrote: | I always give them to benefit of the doubt: assume they're | buying it for someone else, probably their partner. | googlryas wrote: | My pregnant wife refuses to buy me beer from the grocery store | because of observations from strangers like this. | jjulius wrote: | My wife has picked up marijuana for me while pregnant from a | dispensary before because it was right next to another business | that she was already at. Please don't be so quick to judge | others. | darth_avocado wrote: | I'm glad this research is being done. I don't use cannabis, but I | also don't frown upon it. However some of the conversations on | the use of cannabis recently have changed from "it's a drug, but | it isn't that bad" to "it is completely harmless". Which in my | opinion is very dangerous and could harm entire populations | before we have enough research. In my opinion, it should be | considered similar category as alcohol, cigarettes, fat and | sugar, a national health issue and research needs to happen asap | on various short term and long term effects. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _However some of the conversations on the use of cannabis | recently have changed from "it's a drug, but it isn't that bad" | to "it is completely harmless"._ | | Or even worse, "it's nothing but beneficial!". And yes, I'm a | semi-regular "user" | xattt wrote: | The same sentiment can be applied to current psychedelics | research. | taurath wrote: | Can you post a source for any claim that theyre harmless? I | don't think any reputable researcher has ever said that, | but they have started talking about potential for positive | effects, which is a far cry from "if you take this it will | ruin your life". | kevinpet wrote: | You're missing the point of the conversation if you think | this is about "reputable researchers". | irrational wrote: | It's still a DUI if you drive on it. The week after it was | legalized in my state, a person managed to put their car | through the second story of a home. The toxicology report | showed the only thing in their system was cannabis. | ok_dad wrote: | Cannibis can be in your system for weeks or months, so take | the authority reports that the accident was caused by | cannabis intoxication with a grain of salt, and assume that | absent other evidence it might be that the user in this case | wasn't high at the time. | | I'm not saying this to say no accidents has been caused by | cannibis, but that there's currently no way to tell current | level of cannabis intoxication. Authorities will use the lack | of nuance in their favor. | sokoloff wrote: | > absent other evidence | | Perhaps a car embedded in the second floor of a house? | ok_dad wrote: | A traffic collision is not evidence of inebriation, | though, since people get in collisions when not | inebriated. I'm talking about someone following them that | saw them weaving, not holding a phone, perhaps nodding | asleep, or maybe even someone saw them smoking a joint, | then a just-lit joint was found at the scene. | avgcorrection wrote: | Fat is an essential macronutrient. | Godel_unicode wrote: | Fat includes transfat. This back-and-forth does an excellent | job of underlining GPs point about those being complex | subjects that require study and nuanced explanation. | Bud wrote: | It's not that complex, actually. The vast majority of fats, | all the natural ones, basically, are fine. Healthy, even. | The weirdass plastic fats created by injecting hydrogen | into vegetable oil are not fine. | | Done! Was that really so nuanced? No. It was not. | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | Try explaining to an average person how they can identify | which food products at the supermarket have noble-gas- | fat-products in them and which don't. | lolinder wrote: | "Check the nutrition facts label. If it has any trans | fat, put it back." | kube-system wrote: | Trans fats are now banned in the US so there's not much | of a need to look. | feet wrote: | That's easy. The packages are labeled with nutrient | information, don't eat any that contain any amount of | trans fats. | | Also as a side note, hydrogen isn't a noble gas | newswasboring wrote: | I think this would mean eating nothing but home cooked | meals or a 3x in grocery bill. I'm not even sure of the | latter strategy | Bud wrote: | I know. I edited my comment to correct that. Apologies | for the error, hydrogen fans! | jamesssssss833 wrote: | In a lot of ways in the US i see the issue here coming down to | prohibition. If Marijuana was legal and regulated then the FDA | could prosecute fraudsters that claim the drug is "completely | hazard free miracle herb that doctors HATE". | | Of course irresponsible fools are taking advantage in a gap in | the law to make short term profits. | HereIGoAgain wrote: | So much this. It's become so white washed that you would think | it's actually good for you if you only listened to media. | scythe wrote: | The primary positive effect of cannabis in the general | population is probably that it tends to interfere with alcohol | consumption, due to excessive sedation. This probably explains | the lack of negative population-level effects of cannabis | legalization. The most concerning effect of cannabis is its | tendency to increase heart rate. | | Quite a bit of research is available on the effects of cannabis | use -- the problem is that people don't read it. | ejb999 wrote: | >>the problem is that people don't read it. | | More likely, they probably can't wade thru the noise to find | it - search cannabis and health and be prepared to search | thru hundreds, if not ten's of thousands of pages of | propaganda claiming that it is nothing but good for almost | any health condition you have - real or imagined. | robocat wrote: | > The most concerning effect of cannabis is its tendency to | increase heart rate. | | Can you tell me why you think heart rate is more concerning | than the psychological effects? Effects which the paper | itself mentions and you seem to downplay for some unobvious | reason to me. | | For me, the difficulty is discerning causation from | correlation. Anecdotally I know plenty of cannabis users, and | many of them have obvious mental issues. I am interested in | knowing the root cause of mental issues, because then we are | given the opportunity to affect behaviours to improve | people's lives. A correlation is often little help to anyone | but other researchers. | | I didn't read the paper but the abstract didn't allude to any | insight into causation versus correlation. If an abstract of | a paper ignores that issue, then I often don't bother | reading, because there is not enough value from studies | measuring correlation (for my personal use for any | information). | sokoloff wrote: | > Anecdotally I know plenty of cannabis users, and many of | them have obvious mental issues | | If there's a causal link, I wonder in which direction is | more common? I know kids from my neighborhood who now smoke | a lot of weed. I think most of them had issues long before | trying weed and weed was more of an escape for them, much | like booze is for many. | ok_dad wrote: | > Anecdotally I know plenty of cannabis users, and many of | them have obvious mental issues | | Do they have actual, diagnosed "mental issues", or are you | judging that some of their behavior is out of the norm for | your experience and thus it must be a mental issue? | nico wrote: | Recently attended a lecture on Cannabis by a renowned | researcher on the subject (the Director of the UCLA Center | for Cannabis & Cannabinoids) | | The most adverse (proven) effects of Cannabis are: | | * Frequent bronchitis (for people that smoke it) | | * Risk of vehicle crashes | | * Low pregnancy weight, preterm birth, NICU | | * Mental health (associated risk of schizophrenia, | depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, Cannabis use | disorder) | | * Impaired learning, memory, attention | | * Drug-drug interaction (mostly for CBD - liver toxicity) | | That's the complete slide. Not once in the whole lecture were | heart rate issues mentioned or asked about by the attendees. | | As you can see, there are plenty of adverse effects, but | heart-related issues are not one of the main concerns. | | Do you have any sources for the research you mention and how | concerning it is? | hollywood_court wrote: | I agreed with all of that except for fat. You need fat. You | don't need any of the others. | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | I need alcohol to be sociable. | virtuabhi wrote: | Hello, Mr. Koothrappali :) | [deleted] | uptownfunk wrote: | Could someone help me understand the mechanism of action that | triggers mental problems from cannabis consumption? I recall it | being a trigger for psychosis in some cases. | jazzyjackson wrote: | only spitballing, but everyone has intrusive thoughts, and we | tune them out to various degrees | | weed can be a kind of thought dis-inhibitor, and can take any | thought that crosses your mind and make it the most important | thought you've ever had (see also: thinking your stoned ideas | are revolutionary inventions, until you sober up and realize | you've re-invented the tea kettle) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-12 23:00 UTC)