FRIDAY, July 19, 2019 (HealthDay News) — From 2009 to 2017, the frequency of cannabis use in the year before pregnancy and during pregnancy increased, according to a study published online July 19 in JAMA Network Open.
Kelly C. Young-Wolff, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland, and colleagues used data from 367,403 pregnancies among 276,991 women to examine trends in the frequency of self-reported cannabis use among pregnant women in the year before and during pregnancy.
The researchers found that the adjusted prevalence of cannabis use in the year before pregnancy increased from 6.80 to 12.50 percent from 2009 to 2017, and the adjusted prevalence of cannabis use during pregnancy increased from 1.95 to 3.38 percent. There were significant increases in the annual relative rates of change in self-reported daily cannabis use, weekly cannabis use, and monthly or less cannabis use (1.115, 1.083, and 1.050, respectively) in the year before pregnancy; daily use increased the most rapidly (from 1.17 to 3.05 percent). Similarly, significant increases were seen in the annual relative rates of change during pregnancy (1.110, 1.075, and 1.044, respectively); daily use increased most rapidly (from 0.28 to 0.69 percent).
“Future studies are critically needed to determine whether and how the adverse outcomes of maternal perinatal cannabis use on the health and development of infants and children vary with daily versus less frequent use,” the authors write.
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