I need information on the effect of marijuana on pregnancy.
I need to know if the smoker is the male partner, would have any effect on sperm thus effecting the fetus.

Thanks

I like Larry Stevens' site with the "new" info about how cannabinoids seem to be stronger antioxidants than either vitamin E or C. He's got a post on the General board with a link to his site. I made a post in the same thread, but made mistakes copying his link, so the link to his site in my posts in his thread on the General Board do not work.

His post is # 2178 on the General Board. My post is number 2194; same board.

I saw at his site that the 3 largests human studies of marijuana users found that: marijuana users were:

1) Healthier (less illness).

2) Slightly More Intelligent.

3) Lived Longer.

... than non users.

I like his site *alot*, although much of the info is similar news; from different sources ... and I was somewhat confused about his system of "pagination" at his site. These were *very* minor distractions to a fine site with super info about the many health benefits of cannabinoids.

Thanks, Michael Sullivan, for pointing out that cannabis can help combat "morning sickness" in pregnant moms. I read some time ago, that in one or more study(ies) done comparing moms who used cannabis to moms who did not -- it was found that the moms who used cannabis while pregnant had larger, happier (and, I presume, heathier) babies.

I'll try to make the link to Larry Stevens site clickable below this message.

I believe that any Mom who uses unnecessary drugs during pregnancy is being selfish and unwise. Such a person is putting their own comfort ahead of their baby's.

Future moms-be careful. If you get high (any drug) during pregnancy, you are taking a chance. If you don't get high, you eliminate any chance that the drug(s) could harm the baby or subvert the developmental process.

Future dads- support your partner by abstaining yourselves while she is pregnant. Smoking a doobie while she's trying to stay straight is not supportive, it's selfish.

R. Webber,

Thanks for your responses to my posts. I appreciate them....

No, actually I was not kidding about mom's using cannabis while pregnant. I was just reporting what I had read on the 'net. You say that "much evidence indicates that smoking weed can lead to low birthweight babies [under 5 # 8 oz.]"

That may indeed be so, but I have not seen any references on the 'net which backs up what you say.

I *have* seen, however, at least one site on the 'net which noted that moms-to-be who used cannabis had *heavier, and apparently healthier babies than those who did not.* The study author[s] pointed out that they were not sure that the cannabis was the reason that the babies were bigger in the moms who used cannabis during pregnancy. They stated that the moms who used cannabis tended to be richer than those who did not, and that this income difference may be the reason that they had larger babies than those moms who did not use cannabis while pregnant.

Note: if what you say is true, namely that there is some evidence that "smoking cannabis" may lead to low birthweight babies, than one would have to be sure to separate out the effects of smoking cannabis and smoking tobacco. Apparently, in Europe, and maybe elsewhere, most people smoke their cannabis with tobacco added.

It's been known for decades that smoking tobacco constricts your circulatory system [while cannabis does the opposite...] and leads to still births and low birthweights in newborns.

R. Webber, perhaps you could provide a link supporting what you say. For what it's worth, I read about the study that said that mom's who smoke cannabis had larger babies than those who did not, quite a while before I ever started posting on the web.

However, if anyone wants that info from a link, I'll see if I can hunt it down again....

BTW, perhaps it should be noted that in order to live you must consume and make your own antioxidants. In fact, in order to have babies with healthy brains, or brains at all, moms-to-be *MUST INGEST THE ANTIOXIDANT* known as "folic acid."

I have heard people beginning to suspect that drug use in men could be related to babies being born with Down Syndrome. As far as I know there are no official studies to confirm or deny this suspision. I'm also not sure if it makes a difference depending on which drug the man takes.

Hi Amy,

I just saw your post to me. I did two searches for you, using this search site: http://www.metacrawler.com . I've pasted some of the URLs which were returned by these two searches, below, along with a brief comment on some of them. Note: Amy, I think the Jamaican Study I referred to in my earlier post, is the last one in this post. Amy, I've left you some more words after these URLs, below. Good Luck!

******************************

Part One.

Query: pregnancy+marijuana+birth-wieght
Collated Results: 1 to 20 of 20 references.

(Amy, I have not read these two links here.) 1000 COHIS: Teen Pregnancy and Maternal/Neonatal Health: Drug Abuse and Pre...
Teen Pregnancy and Maternal/Neonatal Health Menu About Pregnancy Pregnancy and Drug Abuse Postnatal Care Drugs and Pregnancy Menu Some research studies suggest that the use of marijuana during pregnancy may result in premature babies and in low birth weights.
http://gopher1.bu.edu/COHIS/teenpreg/drugs/marjuana.htm (Excite)
Pages at this site with the same name:
1. http://gopher1.bu.edu/COHIS/teenpreg/drugs/sedative.htm
2. http://gopher1.bu.edu/COHIS/teenpreg/drugs/opioids.htm

(Not read.) 999 COHIS: Teen Pregnancy and Maternal/Neonatal Health Main Menu
Topic Manager About COHIS Get Prepared Main Menu Kid's Corner HealthSource: Teen Pregnancy VRML Repository Copyright and Legal Disclaimer WHAT'S NEW!!!
http://www.bu.edu/cohis/teenpreg/teenpreg.htm (WebCrawler)

***900 Exposing Marijuana Myths:Claim #7(The Lindesmith Center)
THE LINDESMITH CENTER A powerful accusation in anti-drug campaigns is that children are permanently harmed by their mothers' use of drugs during pregnancy.
http://scs.student.virginia.ed...ewsinfo/mythsclaims/claim7.htm (Excite)

(Not read.) 800 Marijuana - Effects on the Female
Due to restraints on experiments in which marijuana is used on human subjects, especially on the female who may become pregnant, most of our information comes from animal studies and healthy males.
http://www.prideusa.org/druginfo/12.htm (Excite)

*(Alcohol can cause very serious and permanent damage to babies if their mom drinks while she is pregnant.) 789 Alcohol
Alcohol, when used in excess, can raise the levels of some kinds of fats in the blood (hypertriglyceridemia) . It can also raise blood pressure (hypertension) and cause heart failure.
http://www.amhrt.org/Heart_and_Stroke_A_Z_Guide/alcohol.html (WebCrawler)

***(Amy, I did not read….) 292 COHIS: Teen Pregnancy and Maternal/Neonatal Health: Drug Abuse and Pre...
Teen Pregnancy and Maternal/Neonatal Health Menu About Pregnancy Pregnancy and Drug Abuse Postnatal Care Drugs and Pregnancy Menu ***Caffeine*** certainly has the ability to cause a variety of reproductive effects in animals, including congenital abnormalities and reproductive failures, reduced fertility, prematurity, and low birth weight.
http://web.bu.edu/cohis/teenpreg/drugs/caffpreg.htm (Excite)

(Not read.) 288 March of Dimes: Preventing Preterm Labor
Preterm or "premature" birth is when your baby is born three weeks or more before it's due. You may have seen pictures of "preemie" babies in their hospital incubators.
http://www.noah.cuny.edu/pregn...h_of_dimes/birth/preterm2.html (WebCrawler)


***97 State Takes Newborn When Oklahoma Mother Tests Positive for Marijuana
A Personal Newsletter on the Cannabis Controversies / Date: 07/31/98 Freedom has nothing to fear from the truth. It might not happen often, but a woman's baby can be taken from her at birth by the state if she tests positive for marijuana use, authorities said Wednesday.
http://marijuananews.com/state...takes_newborn_when_oklahom.htm (Excite)

***********************************

Part Two.

Amy, the following URLs came from a http://www.metacrawler.com search for: pregnancy+birth-weight+jamaica

(This URL has several sections, including one on marijuana and pregnancy.) 800 Marijuana Health Mythology
June 1994 by Dale Gieringer, Ph.D. Coordinator, California NORML Marijuana and Smoking:A recent survey by the Kaiser Permanente Center found that daily marijuana-only smokers have a 19% higher rate of respiratory complaints than non-smokers.(1) These findings were not unexpected, since it has long been known that, aside from its psychoactive ingredients, marijuana smoke contains virtually...
http://www.cats-eye.com/cannabis/myths.html (Excite)

Amy, I believe (but I am not positive; I did not read it fully, I think this is the one I was referring to in my earlier post) the following URL has the actual Jamaican study I referred to, in my earlier post, which you responded to. This link, has the full, actual Jamaican study, I believe. I'll paste a part from near the end, below, for you.

Btw, Amy, most folks ~strongly suggest that pregnant mom's to be, not use marijuana. I think it should be a personal choice, but that it's very wise medically NOT to smoke any tobacco while pregnant; while it is probably wise politically not to use marijuana, while pregnant (although there *may* be some good health benefits from using it.) Also, in our society, a family can lose their newborn, if the mom tests positive for marijuana, while at the hospital giving birth. (See the URL in the section above in this post, for a URL with this info.)

***900 Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica - An Ethn...
Pediatrics, February 1994, Volume 93, Number 2, pp. 254-260. American Academy of Pediatrics From the Schools of Nursing, Education, and Public Health, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
http://www.pdxnorml.org/Pediat..._Prenatal_m_exposure_0294.html (Excite)

amy, here's a quote from the URL above.

"DISCUSSION

Although no positive or negative neurobehavioral effects of prenatal exposure were found at 3 days of life using the Brazelton examination, there were significant differences between the exposed and nonexposed neonates at the end of the first month. Comparing the two groups, the neonates of mothers who used marijuana showed better physiological stability at 1 month and required less examiner facilitation to reach an organized state and become available for social stimulation. The results of the comparison of neonates of the heavy-marijuana-using mothers and those of the nonusing mothers were even more striking. The heavily exposed neonates were more socially responsive and were more autonomically stable at 30 days than their matched counterparts. The quality of their alertness was higher; their motor and autonomic systems were more robust; they were less irritable; they were less likely to demonstrate any imbalance of tone; they needed less examiner facilitation to become organized; they had better self-regulation; and were judged to be more rewarding for caregivers than the neonates of nonusing mothers at 1 month of age."

*********************************

Good luck, Amy, with your pregnancy and your new baby. I hope you guys do well, and don't run into any medical or political trouble(s.)

Sincerely,

Pat.

Hi Ashlynn,

perhaps you may wish to go to the Medical board at this web site, and check out messages #426, and #427. (You can view these boards in the Quickview Mode, where all the messages are listed in reverse numerical order.)

Message #426 has a link to the actual Jamaican study, with their statistical findings, etc.

Good luck, Ashlynn.

Hi Holly,

yes, I've seen some references on the net about what 'low birth weight babies being caused by cannabis use' now, since I wrote the post you refer to. I'm not sure if I've seen any that say it causes learning dissabilities, though.

Holly, perhaps you may wish to go to the Medical board at this web site, and check out messages #426, and #427. (You can view these boards in the Quickview Mode, where all the messages are listed in reverse numerical order.)

Message #426 has a link to the actual Jamaican study (which seems to show that cannabis can be a positive influence on babies...), with their statistical findings, etc.

It's quite possible that some valid scientific studies would show that sometimes cannabis smoking in expectant moms can lead to low birth weight babies, and at other times to healthier babies, (as the Jamaica study *apparently* showed.)

However, there may be at least 3 or 4 different scientific (as apposed to political) things going on here.

1. Tobacco is known to constrict blood vessels, and lead to still births, and low birth weight (sicker) babies, etc.

2. The active cannabinoids in cannabis are vaso-dilators sp?, and open up arteries, etc.

3. However if one smokes too much 'plant matter' in 'low grade' cannabis, maybe the deleterious effects of smoking the leaves may outweigh the possible benefits of the cannabinoids consumed. While it's to the cannabis user's best interest to smoke as little plant matter as possible, it's also especially in the baby's best interest to do so, too.
Because of this, it would be wise I believe, for moms to be, who are going to use cannabis, to avoid tobacco completely, and to use the highest grade of cannabis they can afford. Note: it's easily possible to extract out the cannabinoids from the cannabis plant matter, using pure alcohol. Doing so, would allow one to ingest the (potentially healthful) cannabinoids, w/o ingesting the (probably harmful) burned plant matter.

4. Many cannabis users are also tobacco users, and also, many Europeans mix their cannabis with tobacco. So, in these cases, it is impossible I think, to tell if any possible damage done to the mother and/or baby, is due to the tobacco or to the cannabis.

Btw, this is important, I think. Folks can go the the US' NIH National Library of Medicine, online. As I recall, they have access to over 9 million medical studies 'about everything under the sun', from all around the world. I think this is the world's largest collection of medical studies. At any rate, it's a very valuable resource, indeed.

I update my pages constantly so please reload or refresh the pages often when visiting my site. I'm still learning and changing. Hopefully my site will get better, more navigable and useful.

Hi Larry Stevens,

I feel a bit 'sheepish', since 'you caught me red handed' (saying ~'less than good things' about your very fine web site.) Actually, I saw your post here a couple/few nights ago, and I was afraid to read it, because I was afraid your post was yet another one, where I was 'taken to task' for 'promoting cannabis use during pregnancy.'

Mr. Stevens, Sir, I fully understand what it's like to read 'unfavorable words directed torwards oneself.' I hope my (somewhat brash) comment earlier about your very fine site did not upset you. I quite possibly was speaking before I had enough chance to check out your site as well as I should have. So, forgive me, if you were hurt by my, perhaps, less than kind words. I know very little about using computers, and nothing about making a web page, so perhaps I should remain quite, in the future. At any rate, I'm very glad that you've made your web site for the world. Thanks!:)

Earlier tonight I went and took a look at your new, updated site. I like it alot. I was not able to read everything you have there, yet, but I read around 60% or so, of the total.

Mr. Stevens, I had an idea which may help you and others. Perhaps it is worthwhile checking out the US government's NIH National Library of Medicine Web Site, for some good studies done on cannabis and/or THC and/or cannabinoids, in general. I think I read where they have over 9 million scientific studies, which may be accessed from this web site. As I recall, about a week or more ago, I went there and did a search for thc. I got back over 3,000 different studies, I believe.

Any way, Larry Stevens, thanks alot for a great site. I hope you'll continue updating it as more good, scientific information comes in about the cannabinoids.

Oh, btw, I made a post on the Medical board (and this board too, I think) about the cannabinoids, etc. I don't recall the exact title of that post, but it contains the words: ~'Vitamin 'M' (for marijuana, etc.) In at least one of the links provided in that post, is information about the chemical structure of THC and it's antioxidant characteristics, I believe. Perhaps you may wish to read that post, to see if it contains any info you may wish to include in your site?

Thanks again, Mr. Larry Stevens.

Cannabis=Food Fuel Fiber Farmaceuticals & Friendship.

I went to the MAP web site, and used their search feature, to search their entire set of files for the following:

milk marijuana -- this search turned up 48 different files. Here is the URL for the output to this search.--
http://www.mapinc.org/swish?KEYWORDS=milk+marijuana&HITS=320&TAG=B&CONTEXT=ALL+News+%281997-99%29

I also did a search there for: pregnancy marijuana -- this search returned 85 files. Here is the output to this search.--
http://www.mapinc.org/swish?KEYWORDS=pregnancy+marijuana&HITS=320&TAG=B&CONTEXT=ALL+News+%281997-99%29

I haven't the time, now, to see if the info you want, is in one or more of these 133 files.

The "Jamaican Study" seems to show that babies who are nursed by moms who use cannabis, are happier and healthier, than the babies of moms who nurse their babies but do not use cannabis.

Pat.

Thanks for your thanks.

I like your handle and your philosophy about Life.... I think that, ideally, everybody should "... love life!!!!"

I know that if a young mammal has enough physical mental and spiritual [TLC, etc.] food, *and is thereby exposed to relatively high levels of endogenous cannabinoids*, which are very similar to those in the Cannabis Plant, when s/he is young enough, this will help her body and brain to grow up fully and healthily. BTW, not only "will this help", it is an absolute necessary, in order to grow up into a healthy and happy animal, human or otherwise....

I have a strong hunch, that the proper usage of exogenous cannabinoids, from the Cannabis Plant, may also help young mammals' brains and bodies to grow up healthily and happily. [Some years back, in a Science News Magazine article, I saw where two "scientists" suggested that if young people "were exposed to marijuana" that their brains may be permanently damaged. I suspect these two fellows are incorrect, in their guess.]

Joyfulsexy, while you say you don't use cannabis for medicinal use, but only for enjoyment, I would venture a guess, that your enjoyable, pleasurable usage of cannabis, actually gives you some net, positive health benefits. That's why I gave you my serious/humorous title, in this post.

IOW's, I believe that your enjoyable recreational use of cannabis, may be properly viewed as medical use, too, in exactly the same way that a few beers each week, may enhance and prolong your life, via alcohol's recreational and medicinal use.

Thanks, Joyfulsexy. Keep on Keepin' On....

Pat.

Pregnancy: EXPOSURE CONCERNS

Additional Information About Marijuana Use
Answered by Peg Plumbo, CNM
SPONSORS DON'T MISS

Q: Looking for research on Marijuana and any problems it may cause a fetus during development.

A: Dear Wayne,

I will refer you to 2 letters that I responded to previously at this site, but since then I have come across some additional information. Marijuana (THC) reported use is in a range from 5-30% among pregnant women. The use of smoking and the concomitant use of marijuana make the independent effects difficult to decipher. Some studies have shown that:

Regular use shortens length of gestation
Use increases the risk of small for dates babies (intrauterine growth retardation)
Birth length has also been noted to be effected (shorter).
Marijuana is not a teratogen (does not cause birth defects) but can cause neuro-behavioral symptoms such as altered visual responses, tremors, jitteriness; such babies are difficult to comfort and settle.
No lasting effects on motor development have been reported
In animals, ovulation can be affected and sperm counts decrease with use
I hope this is somewhat helpful.Ifound this on Parentsplace.com

I don’t know the answer to your question: ~”Can cannabis usage possibly cause a false negative on a pregnancy test?” However, I did the following http://www.metacrawler.com search:

marijuana AND pregnancy AND "false negative"

and I got back the following URL, which provides a listing of about 23-25 different pages. (You don’t always get the same group of pages each time you use this URL.)

http://search.metacrawler.com/crawler?xmap=09501871281237539994&general=marijuana+AND+pregnancy+AND+%22false+negative%22&method=0&rpp=20&hpe=10&region=0&timeout=0&sort=0&refer=mc-search&format=beta99&swizzled=1

Most of the pages that this search returned didn’t appear to answer your question. However, one page perhaps ~may have an answer for you, if only an indirect one.

This page is one of URLs that I got back with the above, long metacrawler long URL.

It’s a Pregnancy Guide and called: Normal Pregnancy. When I looked at the listing of this site in the group of URLs that the Metacrawler search returned, it said this:

Pregnancy
...surveys have shown that the false-negative rate may be as high as...

So, apparently, some mothers can experience a false negative when they take a simple pregnancy test. Btw, I wasn’t able to find this particular quote in the article, so I don’t know what “how high the false negative rate may be”, or, whether using cannabis (marijuana) may affect this rate or not. My own, off the wall guess, is that cannabis use won’t significantly affect the rate of false negatives, but, that’s just a guess. [Btw, this URL was about the 20th to about 22nd one from the top of the list of URLs that this search returns.] Here’s this other link.

Good Luck, Pat.

Normal Pregnancy
http://www.familymed.com/References/ABFPGuides/Pregnancy/pregnancy.htm

Hi gilgamesh,

you say your friend doesn't want to "smoke" anything. But, does she want to use a vaporizer, or, does she think that she'd be satisfied by eating her herbal meds (that is, Cannabinoinds)?

Recently, here on this board, I mentioned how you can extract out Cannabinoids by (I think) boiling the herb in water with some butter, etc.

I know that you can also easily extract out the cannabinoids using the covalent solvent, Acetone. HOWEVER, I read a post on the Medical Board of this site where the poster Cryote said he tried this using "hardware store" Acetone, and that it gave him a headache when he smoked it. (I'm almost certain he said he used acetone.) Anyway, we both suspect that maybe the acetone he used wasn't pure enough (I think he suspects someone added an impurity to the acetone on purpose; I suspect that, if there was an impurity in his acetone, that perhaps it got there by accident.) Also, perhaps there was a little bit of acetone left in his extract when he smoked/vaporized it and perhaps this caused his headache?

To Close. I'm busy now, and (presuming that you want to make an extract to smoke or to vaporize) I don't know the exact, best answer to your question - FOR SURE - but... I think that if you used some pure acetone AND LET IT EVAPORATE BEFORE you vaporized your extract, that this would work pretty well... and about as good as any other method.

*BTW, IF you were going to extract out the Cannabinoids Commercially, you would (or, may...) probably want to use liquified Carbon Dioxide as your extracting solvent. I believe that some commercial, legal herbal suppliers use this method to extract out phytochemicals (that have covalent chemical bonds) that they want to extract from their herbs.

This solvent quickly and fully evaporates when you depresurize your herbs (that is, when you take them out of your extraction chamber.)

IF your friend wants to eat her cannabinoids, she can use butter, or some type of vegetable sp?:) oil to extract out her cannabinoids - this avoids the use of a covalent solvent, such as alcohol or acetone.

Good Luck, Pat.

I've read that you can also use a vaporizer DIRECTLY with your Cannabis herbs or flowers.

If you can use this method, you can inhale your cannabinoids w/o inhaling any (potentially) toxic smoke, etc.

However, (I think) it's easier (with some vaporizers, etc.) to vaporize the extracted cannabinoids than it is to vaporize the cannabinoids out of the herbal or floral cannabis.

Also, you may be able to ingest more of the cannabinoids if you extract them out before you vaporize and/or "smoke" them.