Prenatal Cannabis Exposure Leads to Psychopathology During Middle Childhood

Prenatal cannabis exposure leads to birth-related outcomes such as lower birth weight and infant characteristics like disrupted sleep and movements, says a new study.

Cannabis use during pregnancy leads to psychopathology in middle childhood of the resulting child, according to the researchers at Washington University in St. Louis.

The use of cannabis have been increasingly permissive among pregnant people. It has skyrocketed in the past few years. Unfortunately, despite the increase in use, there is remarkably little information about the potential consequences of prenatal cannabis exposure.

Cannabis
Cannabis has a long history of medicinal, recreational, and industrial use and comes from a bushy plant with thick sticky flowers called Cannabis Sativa

‘Children who were exposed to cannabis in the womb were more prone to adverse outcomes, elevated psychopathology, depression and anxiety as well as impulsivity, attention, social problems and sleep disturbance. They also have lower birth weight and lower cognitive performance, lower indices of global brain structure during middle childhood.’

Previous studies have linked prenatal cannabis exposure to birth-related outcomes such as lower birth weight and infant characteristics like disrupted sleep and movement. Relatively fewer studies have examined behavior and problems as children age.

A team of researchers led by Paul and Alexander Hatoum, a postdoc research scholar, poured through data to examine the effects of maternal use of cannabis during pregnancy on children.

Their findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.

They looked at data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study), an ongoing longitudinal study of nearly 12,000 children ages 9-11 and their parent or caregiver from 22 sites across the United States that began in 2016.

The researchers grouped participants into three mutually exclusive groups: Children who were not exposed to cannabis prenatally; children who were prenatally exposed to cannabis before the pregnancy was known, but not after; and children who had been exposed to cannabis after the pregnancy was known, regardless of exposure before.

When the researchers included important familial, pregnancy and child-related covariates, they found that the association between prenatal cannabis exposure during early stages of pregnancy may not be independent of these confounding factors.

“However, when we look at exposure after maternal knowledge of pregnancy, which corresponds to when endocannabinoid type 1 receptors are expressed in the fetal brain, the associations with child psychopathology largely remain – these children tend to have more psychotic-like experiences, more impulsivity and attention problems, and social problems,” Bogdan said.

“This raises the intriguing possibility that prenatal cannabis exposure may plausibly impact child behavior. It in no way shows causation, but documenting that effects are independent of common confounding factors provides incremental support for potential causation, “ he added.

Being attentive to substance use problems among family members and providing them with support and access to help is critical for anyone regardless of pregnancy status.

Learning about one’s pregnancy may produce additional reason to stop the cannabis use. The current data might provide the clinician and parent-to-be with evidence that stopping after learning of the pregnancy may reduce the likelihood of negative outcomes among their children.

From a public health perspective, Bogdan suggested looking to the highly effective public health campaigns and clinician attention directed at reducing the use of tobacco and alcohol during pregnancy.

Source-Medindia