Melanie Dreher, who is the dean of nursing at Rush Medical Center in Chicago, did a study in Jamaica. It was actually published in the American Journal of Pediatrics 1994, but now itamp;rsquo;s recirculating because of all the interest in the neural protective properties. Basically, she studied women during their entire pregnancy, and then studied the babies about a year after birth. And what she studied was a group of women who did smoke cannabis during pregnancy and those who didnamp;rsquo;t. She expected to see a difference in the babies as far as birth weight and neural tests, but there was no difference whatsoever. The differences that the researchers did notice, that are unexplained and kind of curious are that the babies of the women who had smoked cannabis, and weamp;rsquo;re talking about daily use during their pregnancy, socialized more quickly, made eye contact more quickly and were easier to engage. We donamp;rsquo;t know why this is so, but all the old saws of smoking during pregnancy will result in low birth weight did not show up, at least in the Jamaican study. In U.S. studies where weamp;rsquo;ve seen a similar investigation, women have concurrently been abusing alcohol and other drugs as well. - Fox News
