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• Posted October 28, 2024

Weed Use During Pregnancy May Harm Kids' Behavior, Thinking Skills

Smoking marijuana during pregnancy may quell your morning sickness, but it could also harm your child’s development, a new study warns.

Cannabis exposure in the womb is associated in early childhood with poorer thinking skills, researchers reported Oct. 28 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

These kids also have behavioral problems like impulse control, poor attention and aggressive behavior, researchers found.

“Although cannabis is a natural product, there are still many risks to using it during pregnancy,” said lead researcher Sarah Keim, principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio.

“Some women may turn to cannabis to help deal with some common issues of pregnancy including nausea, sleep problems and stress,” Keim said. “This is not recommended. Consulting with a health care provider to find safer options to help with these issues during pregnancy is important.”

For the study, researchers combined multiple assessment tools to track the development of preschool children.

Kids exposed to weed during pregnancy had more difficulty controlling their impulses, paying attention and planning, based on observations of their behavior in a play laboratory environment. They also tended to show more aggressive behavior.

“Our findings were not surprising -- they actually confirm and expand on longstanding evidence from previous research,” Keim said in a hospital news release. “With our more contemporary and diverse sample of women and children, and with much higher potency of cannabis now than in past decades, this study validates previous research and supports existing clinical recommendations for patients.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about cannabis and pregnancy.

SOURCE: Nationwide Children’s Hospital, news release, Oct. 28, 2024