Can i use cannabis during pregnancy?
Cannabis Use in Pregnant Individuals Linked to Autism in Children
In the largest study of it is kind, researchers found that children whose mothers reported using cannabis during pregnancy were at greater risk of autism. The study, published in Nature Medicine in August of 2020, included births in Ontario between the years 2007 and 2012 (before recreational cannabis was legalized).
Data was sourced from the birth Information System which leads author, Dr Daniel Corsi to call “an especially powerful perinatal registry for research with more than one million mother-baby dyads, the BIS is one of the largest data sources of its kind globally".
“We can link data from the BIS to ICES, a world-class data warehouse institution in Ontario. Combining these two resources allows for a really rich data set for analysis from conception, pregnancy, and birth and across the life course”.
The researchers used BIS data, combined with health records from ICES to longitudinally follow more than half a million children in Ontario and look for diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental problems after exposure to cannabis. They found that the prevalence of autism was higher among children birth to females who had used cannabis during pregnancy.
Because cannabis is legal in Ontario, more socially acceptable, and even promoted by some as a treatment for morning sickness, pregnant individuals may not be aware of the risks.
"We know so little about how cannabis affects pregnant females and their babies. Parents-to-be should inform themselves of the possible risks, and that we hope studies like ours can help" says Dr Mark Walker, Scientific Director of birth Ontario and one of the study's authors.
The team has plans for further research: “Although the findings were compelling, we plan to continue the research to address some limitations. For example, we plan to collect blood and urination samples to measure cannabis directly. We also are engaging with other perinatal registries in British Columbia and Nova Scotia to conduct similar studies.”
Dr Corsi's research has already found it is way into Up-to-Date - a clinical decision support tool employed by over 1,000,000 physicians in one hundred and seventy countries. Up-to-Date presents a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence available on a subject, followed by recommendations that will be acted on at the point of care. This is an excellent example of data translation: healthcare providers using the newest research evidence to assist counsel their patients about risk.
Meet Dr Daniel Corsi...
Dr CoDr. Daniel Corsirsi has been interested in substance use research for years but started focusing his efforts on cannabis research in the year 2017 after Canada announced plans to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. He wondered how legalization would affect the utilization of cannabis among pregnant individuals: “We initially wanted to seem at changes within the rates of use over time and eventually compare use before and after legalization. We also are curious about socio-economic, demographic, and lifestyle factors associated with cannabis use”.
SOURCE
https://www.bornontario.ca/en/publications/cannabis-use-in-pregnancy.aspx