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 While previous research has tied teen drug and alcohol use to higher
odds of multiple sex partners and pregnancy, the current study
offers fresh insight into marijuana use among young women.
About 14 percent of pregnant girls ages 12 to 17 smoke marijuana,
compared to roughly 6 percent of their non-pregnant peers, the study
found. By contrast, older pregnant women were at least half as
likely to smoke pot as their peers.
Among all pregnant women ages 12 to 44 in the study, about 6 percent
reported marijuana use during the first trimester, while 3 percent
said they smoked pot in the second trimester and about 2 percent use
the drug in the third and final trimester.
“These findings should be considered in a broader context in which
young people increasingly view marijuana not just as a benign, but
even as a beneficial drug,” said lead study author Dr. Nora Volkow,
director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda,
Maryland.
“The higher prevalence of marijuana use observed in the first
trimester as opposed to later in the pregnancy, suggests that some
women are likely to resort to marijuana for managing their nausea,”
Volkow added by email.
Doctors advise women to completely avoid marijuana during pregnancy
because it may have negative effects on fetal neurodevelopment,
especially during the first trimester.
For the study, researchers examined survey data on marijuana use
reported by 410,000 women aged 12 to 44, including 14,400 who were
pregnant. The national survey data was collected from 2002 to 2015.
Overall, about 4 percent of pregnant women and almost 8 percent of
non-pregnant women reported using marijuana, researchers report in
the Annals of Internal Medicine.
In both pregnant and non-pregnant groups, women who were at least 26
years old were less likely to use marijuana than younger women.
Among pregnant women, black women were more likely to report
marijuana use than other racial and ethnic groups.
One limitation of the study is that it relied on women to accurately
report their drug use, which may mean the results underestimate how
much people use it, the authors note.
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Even so, the findings are a reminder that despite declining teen
pregnancy rates, parents and doctors should still keep in mind that
these young women may be more likely to engage in risky behaviors
than their peers, said Patricia Cavazos-Rehg of the Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
“We have known for some time that certain groups of adolescents are
prone to deviant behaviors, but we need to know more about the
unique environmental and/or biological vulnerability factors that
influence the tendency for risk behavior engagement at the outset,”
Cavazos-Rehg, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
The trouble with pot smoking for pregnant teens is it may be even
more dangerous for them than for older women, said Dr. Nathaniel
DeNicola of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
“Drug use, and marijuana use specifically, is underreported by all
age groups, and there is reason to think this is higher among
teens,” DeNicola, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“But the bigger issue: marijuana use is different among teens - it's
more dangerous,” DeNicola added. “There are more adverse and
consequential impacts on the still-developing brain.”
For some teens, just telling about the risk of pot during pregnancy
may be enough to get them to stop, noted Dr. Seth Ammerman of
Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in
California.
“Some of these adolescents who are using do not initially realize
they are pregnant, but once they find out and are counseled to stop
use, a significant number do, so rates decrease from the first
trimester on,” Ammerman, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by
email.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2oF6436 Annals of Internal Medicine, online
April 17, 2017.
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