United States: Long-time smoking of cigarettes during pregnancy has been known as a source of distress to the fetus, while the new investigation has revealed that marijuana or cannabis may even further exacerbate the problem.
It was marked that the risk for underweight babies, preterm deliveries, and even infant mortality was significant among mothers who smoked tobacco and cannabis during pregnancy.
While pregnancy, women smoking cigarettes has long been associated to risks that a fetus has to face while in womb. However, the new research revealed the heightened risk of marijuana mix in smoking.
What more has the study revealed?
The researchers team from Oregon Health & Science University (OSHU), Portland, conducted a study that examined more than three million pregnancies.
Moreover, it encountered a rising danger of underweight infants, preterm delivery, and even loss of life for a child for women who had used tobacco or cannabis while pregnant. Consequently, the assurance that cannabis is the safest widely held belief, the study co-author, Dr. Jaimie Lo said as reported by US news.
She explained, “Because we know that many people who use cannabis often use tobacco or nicotine products, we wanted to better understand the potential health implications on both the pregnant individual and the infant.”
The findings of the study were published in JAMA Network Open on May 7.
How was the study conducted?
Lo’s team found hospital discharge data and vital statistics on about three million pregnant women during the time period, which was about 29 years of age on average, in California.
Out of these women, 23,000 more ( 0.7 percent) had used cannabis while they were pregnant; around 56,800 (1.8 percent) of women had even smoked tobacco, and more than 10300 (0.3 percent) had smoked both.
The risk for infant death was two times higher for mothers who smoked either cigarettes or cannabis, while the probability for infant death was no twice greater for women who abstained from smoking tobacco or drugs during pregnancy, the researchers revealed.
Smoking and vaping while pregnant were associated with a lower risk, whereas the risk rose to four times that of abstainers among women who used tobacco and weed.
According to the report, likewise, observed were similar trends with other pregnancy outcomes, e.g., having a baby that is underweight and delivering the baby before its term. It has been shown that the probability of having babies who have the same stress outcomes doubled for pregnant women who used both of those drugs compared to those who do not use such drugs.
Quitting is unreasonably tough for some women
The researchers also realized that for some women, stopping both substances at once might be unreasonably difficult.
Dr. Adam Crosland, the study lead author and an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at OHSU, said, “We acknowledge the complexities of individual circumstances may make this goal challenging, and for some patients, is simply not realistic,” as US News reported.
Yet, “our findings suggest that avoiding the use of just one of these substances can decrease the pregnancy risks we see when both substances are used together, which is a critical piece of information providers can highlight when counseling patients,” he added.