Cannabis & Pregnancy

[Dan Ultra]

Ok 420 Fam, my wife and I are going to start trying for our 2nd child here pretty soon. What are your thoughts on edibles while pregnant??? We have read studies both for and against but really feel like the benefit of a stress free Pregnancy would benefit both my wife and the child-to-be. Feel free to link studies and/or articles for or against cannabis while pregnant. Our first pregnancy was completely without cannabis and she had healthy and very happy pregnancy. Our daughters personality is outgoing, happy and creative. She can be very stressful at times and my wife is afraid that the added stress of a 3 year old will have a negative impact on her pregnancy.

Annnnddd... GO!!

 

[closetorganic]

Pregnancy & Cannabis

Hey Ultra Dan I cant post links but my wife did lightly smoke throughout our 3 kids pregnancies with no negative effects.There were no issues and she gave birth naturally to our healthy and bright kids and continued to partake during breastfeeding for them too. It was good using our homegrown organic meds knowing what we were smoking.
I dont think or recommend smoking is the best way of use.With edibles you may have the factor of delayed effects or inconsistant strengths maybe. Anyways she did work her job right up to births and 6 weeks after.NO morning sickness was great and the ability to lighten the stress when needed I feel did help her and our kids out all around in health intellect and personalities

 

[Tead]

Re: Pregnancy & Cannabis

Call me old fashioned... and maybe my opinion is based in wrong information, but I really don't like rocking any boats when it comes to things seated so firmly in the core of nature. Our species has been working for eons developing the most effective way of doing the birthing dance. When I do something different or unusual, the consequences can be very unforeseen as well as taking forever to develop.
I kind of hold a similar view about my growing. When I color outside the lines, I have to be willing to accept the results.
While I'm willing to accept those chances in my garden, the womb is a much different environment.

 

[Colesdad]

I wouldn't recommend it, however, my sister did during both pregnancy and both are happy and healthy kids.

 

[Bapple]

I am pretty old school - even though I smoke tobacco and cannabis and drink regularly, while I was pregnant I stopped absolutely everything to give my baby the best chance of achieving its genetic potential. Having said that during pregnancy, the smell of all my vices was absolutely disgusting so my body also helped me with the choice to quit for the duration.

I don't think that it's a decision your wife should base on studies, articles or hearsay. It is a decision she should make from her core, and her body will help her with that decision if she listens to it.

If she thinks a healthy 3 year old is a handful, she should think about how much of an impact, emotionally and dynamic wise a poorly/disabled baby will have on the family unit. Worse of all, the guilt/recriminations that would always plague ones mind if the child was damaged in any way makes it a no brainer for me.

 

[Dan Ultra]

If she thinks a healthy 3 year old is a handful, she should think about how much of an impact, emotionally and dynamic wise a poorly/disabled baby will have on the family unit. Worse of all, the guilt/recriminations that would always plague ones mind if the child was damaged in anyway makes it a no brainer for me.

Man... That hit the nail on the head Bapple. Thank you for your wisdom, it is much appreciated.

 

[winterwhisper]

Let me climb on my soap box a little...during pregnancy I consider it criminal to force an effect like cannabis on a person that has no choice. If the current child is "stressful" then why is she getting pregnant again !? She apparently can't completely deal with the one she has. Let me also point out the legalities of this situation as in many states this would be considered child abuse. If parents really don't want to be selfish and don't want to vicitimize their kids wait out the 9 months until what you want to do directly affects only you. There are homeopathics, amino acids and other less intense herbals that can calm you down. Try the pellet gun before you go for the shotgun. Gaba is good as well as many of the herbal tinctures, lavender, plantain, catnip etc. Please consider these before
affecting an innocent baby.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Cannabis has been used throughout history by mothers to help cure morning sickness. Alcohol has been known throughout the same time frame to cause the detrimental effects to children as it is known to cause now. When we examine the chapters of history we find no connection between women using cannabis for morning sickness, and the types of health effects drinking while pregnant can lead to.

We need to remember that the prohibition of cannabis is relatively new in comparison with its use as medicine throughout human history. In the meantime, we often use newer, less proven medicines during pregnancy without any consideration on the fetus, and that sometimes has disastrous effects. Have you seen the recall commercials lately for "Zofram" supposedly causing cleft lips and palates? Think of how many women took this supposedly "safe" medication as an alternative to smoking a bowl to help their nausea, and it turns out it wasn't any safer than what they were trying to protect against.

There is simply not a documented history of cannabis causing developmental problems, but on the other hand I think a little common sense could be used. Smoking is probably not going to be advantageous, and staying stoned 24/7 is much different than using it for relief of any kind. Otherwise I believe that looking at cannabis as a narcotic in this context is slightly misleading, because of the stigma attached to using narcotics while pregnant. The truth is though, that many medicines that women use while pregnant to relief various ailments could actually do more harm than cannabis can and to say "Well I wouldn't use it just to be safe," is kind of a knee jerk reaction to the stigma that still surrounds it.

I've known many mothers use it and their children are perfectly healthy, but I think there is an obvious line between using it safely as a medicine and using it as a narcotic. The latter is where I think there may be potential for some kind of adverse health effect, but realistically staying loaded on anything during pregnancy is going to be bad. I'd rather see my wife smoke a bowl or two a day for pain relief than popping acetaminophen or opiates for example. Both those drugs have serious, verified, and documented effects on the liver and developing brains of fetuses, but people see them as "clean" and "medicine" so don't consider it.

 

[Bapple]

Interestingly morning Sickness and nausea are only considered 'sickness' in so called civilised societies. Elsewhere they are just side effects of early pregnancy and not considered a sign of anything untoward, that needs to be fixed......

 

[winterwhisper]

I would suspect that possible developmental effects of cannabis on a fetus have been unstudied. Why would anyone play a game of possibilites with their children on anything? Similarly one game of averages being played locally here is a couple called the "free range" parents. While I can appreciate their stance of wanting to teach their kids self reliance , I do not agree with the way they are doing it and the chance with their children's lives they are taking. With the world of sickos..I would not want to be the parent who takes that chance and have it be a losing proposition. With pregnancy and the heath and lack of consent of a fetus ( or pet ) I am opposed to affecting them with cannabis that has THC. It is the psychoactive part of cannabis that would be thrust upon a living being without their consent and without knowledge of what to expect or how to handle it. There is a plethora of herbs that can be used to alleviate morning sickness that would not inpart psychoactive affects upon an innocent. Get f---ed up if you want to ..but don't get the kids and pets f----d up.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Interestingly morning Sickness and nausea are only considered 'sickness' in so called civilised societies. Elsewhere they are just side effects of early pregnancy and not considered a sign of anything untoward, that needs to be fixed......

What are we talking about when we say "civilized societies" though? Not living in the bush with no access to medicine and running water? Yeah go figure people with access to medicine would want to use it to treat illness.

It seems like there's a whole lot of talk about women needing to accept nausea as a part of pregnancy like it's just part of being responsible or something and I think that's kind of foolish. However there's little attention paid to whether or not these ailments could cause undue stress which could trigger miscarriage, and there's an overwhelming amount of "good faith" placed in modern medicine when it's actually responsible for more birth defects than cannabis can be attributed to.

P.S.
Jamaican women in specific were the ones most well known to use it to cure morning sickness. So if by "civilized" you really meant "western" there's that...

winterwhisper,

Interesting, so how would your thoughts on that extend to pain medications and behavioral therapy medications for things like ADD and depression that youths and adolescents are increasingly being placed on?

 

[winterwhisper]

What are we talking about when we say "civilized societies" though? Not living in the bush with no access to medicine and running water? Yeah go figure people with access to medicine would want to use it to treat illness.

It seems like there's a whole lot of talk about women needing to accept nausea as a part of pregnancy like it's just part of being responsible or something and I think that's kind of foolish. However there's little attention paid to whether or not these ailments could cause undue stress which could trigger miscarriage, and there's an overwhelming amount of "good faith" placed in modern medicine when it's actually responsible for more birth defects than cannabis can be attributed to.

P.S.
Jamaican women in specific were the ones most well known to use it to cure morning sickness. So if by "civilized" you really meant "western" there's that...

winterwhisper,

Interesting, so how would your thoughts on that extend to pain medications and behavioral therapy medications for things like ADD and depression that youths and adolescents are increasingly being placed on?

First may I say that I was not the poster who mentioned "civilized societies"...I don't think there is such an animal. I also don't necessarily use other societie's habits as a firm guideline for my own actions. I don't jump off the bridge because someone else does it. If you'll reach my post carefully I am not against marijuana during pregnancy per se...but against those strains that would have psychoactive effects on the children or pets. Especially when it affects the mind...the seat of all coherance and reality. I am not against pain medicine as it saved my life for more than 20 years with only 2 increases over this time due to landlords that are dickheads. While I was accurately "dependant" on it I was not addicted to it. Quite the opposite I took the minimum (10-15MG) that would allow me not to suffer. I do not abuse medicines ( well maybe a little black beauties way back when ) and I do not believe in affecting innocents with strong damaging drugs of any kind if it can be helped. I believe psych medicines are way over prescribed and we might need to shove some of these down a few politician's and doctor's throats so they can appreciate the effects of these meds. I tend to trust nature's pharmacy over any man made drug. It's a juggling act. Ultimatly it will come down to what is affordable and available for the relief of symptoms. Medicines of any kind have a karma of their own and personal responsability also comes into play. Educate, become proactive and stay away from doctors when you can. The only things they're good for is prescribing the films and blood work.

 

[TheFertilizer]

First may I say that I was not the poster who mentioned "civilized societies"...I don't think there is such an animal. I also don't necessarily use other societies habits as a firm guideline for my own actions. I don't jump off the bridge because someone else does it. If you'll reach my post carefully I am not against marijuana during pregnancy per se...but against those strains that would have psychoactive effects on the children or pets. Especially when it affects the mind...the seat of all coherance and reality. I am not against pain medicine as it saved my life for more than 20 years with only 2 increases over this time due to landlords that are dickheads. While I was accurately "dependant" on it I was not addcited to it. Quite the opposite I took the minimum that would allow me not to suffer. I do not abuse medicines ( well maybe a little black beauties way back when ) and I do not believe in affecting innocents with strong damaging drugs of any kind if it can be helped. I believe psych medicines are way over prescribed and we might need to shove some of thesae down a few politicians and cotors throats so they can appreciate the effects of these meds. I tend to trust nature's pharmacy over any man made drug. It's a juggling act. Ultimatly it will comne down to what is affordable and available for the relief of symptoms. Medicines of any kind have a karma of their own and personal responsability also comes into play. Educate, become proactive and stay away from doctors when you can. The only things they're good for is prescribing the films and blood work.

Yeah the first part of that post was responding to Bapple.

The one thing though that I find interesting about cannabis is that people often talk about the unknown risks because the effects are not well studied. Anecdotally though, there's literally centuries of information that suggests it can be used without concern for harming the mother or child. Then on the contrary, modern medicines are seen as "cleaner" and "safer" alternatives tend to have much more of a recorded history of being able to cause harm so it's strange to me that people immediately suspect cannabis will do some harm and I feel like it's because of the associated stigma of it being a "narcotic".

One reason I pointed out the pain medications is because they are derived from opiates, which as I'm sure you know is what heroin is also derived from. They can also have a very strong narcotic effect, but help with main and can be prescribed and used safely with little side-effects--although some would argue the potential damage to the liver in medication that also contains Tylenol is pretty high.

Point is I wonder why more people don't consider using a natural medicine like cannabis to being akin to using an opiate based pain medicine. We may need to actually work on correct dosing and stuff, but the principle is pretty much the same.

 

[winterwhisper]

The one thing though that I find interesting about cannabis is that people often talk about the unknown risks because the effects are not well studied. Anecdotally though, there's literally centuries of information that suggests it can be used without concern for harming the mother or child. Then on the contrary, modern medicines are seen as "cleaner" and "safer" alternatives tend to have much more of a recorded history of being able to cause harm so it's strange to me that people immediately suspect cannabis will do some harm and I feel like it's because of the associated stigma of it being a "narcotic".

One reason I pointed out the pain medications is because they are derived from opiates, which as I'm sure you know is what heroin is also derived from. They can also have a very strong narcotic effect, but help with main and can be prescribed and used safely with little side-effects--although some would argue the potential damage to the liver in medication that also contains Tylenol is pretty high.

Point is I wonder why more people don't consider using a natural medicine like cannabis to being akin to using an opiate based pain medicine. We may need to actually work on correct dosing and stuff, but the principle is pretty much the same.

Well the initial thread of conversation related to pregnancy..and on that I have my views as I've already described. I know very little about the centuries of studies on pregnant women and the followup on their children so I'd appreciate any direction to where those studies can be found. As to "medicine" in general and doctors...well let's just say I am no doctors friend in general. I do NOT consider lab based meds "cleaner" because we've all seen how many screwed up vicitms and eaths have come about from medicineal side effects and an inefficient FDA that has become the lapdog of pharmas. Pain relief is a double edged sword with those that abuse these meds being the cause of real patients suffering. I think if MMJ ever comes down in price then it may give the pharmas a big run fror their money..but it will be interesting to see how the doctors react when we don't need their opioids anymore. I am aware of the origine of opiods,,,and let me say I've experienced some real cement head with poppy seeds and other herbs. The problem is I don't like lack of clarity in the mind and being able to get total system pain relief. So far I've really appreciate the sleep quality I've gotten with MMJ..but still looking for the elusive seeds of high cbd strains. Until I get those I don't suspect I'll every be able to entirely give up regualr pains meds due to cost and effect. Yes working out the bugs and correct strain is the key to MMJ and I am pretty confident that if the 2 obstacles are overcome I will be in a better health situation. I already feel a slight shifting in my body already after experimenting at very very low dose4s for 2 months.

 

[Bapple]

Pregnancy is not an illness (irrespective of what the medical profession have been espousing over the last 70 or so years) it's a totally natural occurrence, and the side effects of having a person growing inside one are just that side effects, not complications.

Complications during pregnancy are things like eclampsia and pre eclampsia, maternal diabetes etc..... Things that threaten mother or foetuses life.

The brave new world dreamt up by pharmaceutical companies and doctors (their pushers) that says any form of discomfort or pain must immediately be suppressed/medicated whether it is a natural reaction of the human body or an indicator of an underlying condition that the body is trying to draw attention to, is one of the main reasons that many cannabis growers on here and elsewhere are risking jail time just to get themselves off poisons purporting to fix stuff that would probably not have become major issues in the first place.

if human beings would understand that the body is an intelligent, living organism that does not need us for much, except to feed it, wash it, and groom it, if you are that way inclined. My heart beats on its own, my food is digested without any help from me, my spinal fluid does its thing without me, my lungs same deal......We really need to get out of our own way before it's too late.

Advocating that a pregnant woman use cannabis to 'relieve' morning sickness is no different to offering whatever poison big pharma recommends for it.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Pregnancy is not an illness (irrespective of what the medical profession have been espousing over the last 70 or so years) it's a totally natural occurrence, and the side effects of having a person growing inside one are just that side effects, not complications.

Complications during pregnancy are things like eclampsia and pre eclampsia, maternal diabetes etc..... Things that threaten mother or foetuses life.

The brave new world dreamt up by pharmaceutical companies and doctors (their pushers) that says any form of discomfort or pain must immediately be suppressed/medicated whether it is a natural reaction of the human body or an indicator of an underlying condition that the body is trying to draw attention to, is one of the main reasons that many cannabis growers on here and elsewhere are risking jail time just to get themselves off poisons purporting to fix stuff that would probably not have become major issues in the first place.

if human beings would understand that the body is an intelligent, living organism that does not need us for much, except to feed it, wash it, and groom it, if you are that way inclined. My heart beats on its own, my food is digested without any help from me, my spinal fluid does its thing without me, my lungs same deal......We really need to get out of our own way before it's too late.

Advocating that a pregnant woman use cannabis to 'relieve' morning sickness is no different to offering whatever poison big pharma recommends for it.

Uhh I really don't see things from your perspective I guess.

Nausea is an ailment. I don't care if you're throwing up because you're sick, because your pregnant, or because you just drank too much alcohol or ate too much food and did it to yourself... It makes no sense to sit there and suffer the effect of nausea. It's not like pain management where one must accept a certain level of pain in one's life rather than trying to rid yourself of it entirely. Treating nausea is more prudent for preventing dehydration, major increase in blood pressure, and other very large physical and vital stresses associated with vomiting. Simply treating nausea to prevent vomiting doesn't take away the feeling of the upset stomach, so it's not as if a person is using this to escape the feeling of discomfort entirely.

I'm not sure if you really understand the physical toll that intense vomiting plays on a body, we're talking about something a good bit more serious than just discomfort. Unless you think it's good for a fetus or a mother to be dehydrated, with extremely elevated blood pressure, sweating profusely on the verge of hyperthermia. I'm not advocating that a woman try to avoid the random occasion of morning sickness but frankly it's usually not those women who seek a remedy as much as it is the ones that go off like a faucet and can't stop for a day. Having chronic vomiting issues of my own due to GI problems I can tell you it's a little more serious than just not feeling well. Once you start throwing up and can't stop, your core temperature raises, you dehydrate, and you can't rehydrate because you just throw it up even more, I've been to the point where I couldn't recover for days and had to be rehydrated by IV. I doubt very much that would be good for a baby.

Anyway I agree with you that people are chasing "comfort" and the complete lack of pain too much, and yes I agree that's what the medical industry and pharmaceutical industry are leaning toward pushing. I don't think that's really what's important in this respect though because nausea is a bit more of a serious health concern than just pain and discomfort if its involving severe vomiting.

 

[Colesdad]

Another reason I love 420mag, this conversation. Two people have different opinions, share them, listen to the other and remain respectful throughout.
I can't imagine how this conversation would go on other forums I have visited.
Great debate guys (gals), and much love for being civil

 

[maryjane1989]

think it's completely fine. No risk of birth defects plus relieves morning sickness and allows you to eat. I'm all for it. Morning sickness ain't no joke. Some women have to be hospitalized because it gets so bad.

 

[Dave Groomer]

The ECS regulates virtually everything in our body. Our bodies produce Anandamide which is a natural canibinoid. We CCO to bring our bodies into homeostasis and help cure disease and bring our bodies to where they are supposed to be. Normalizing blood pressure. Helping in regulating blood sugars. MS. Pain. Nausea.