Pregnancy and Marijuana:

It was recently brought to my attention of a women in her first trimester of pregnancy that was suffering from migraine headaches and extreme nausea. After trying all the natural things known that would help she still was having no relief from the discomfort of the whole thing and was ready to go to the ER...I suggested to my friend to ask this women if she knew anything about Medical Cannabis and how I thought it could help her. Immediately I got the response I knew was coming.... "Smoking it while you are pregnant seriously?" 

I am sure there are a lot of you that think I have lost my mind! And quite frankly a couple of months ago I would have agreed with you had I been told the same thing. However I am a couple months older and wiser and have documentation to back up why I felt this would help her....

Taken from Marijuana / Cannabis Use In Pregnancy – Dr. Melanie Dreher:

No signs of birth defects:

A landmark study conducted in the 1990s by medical anthropologist Dr. Dreher, (co-author of the book Women and Cannabis: Medicine, Science, and Sociology), gave the medical world a different insight into the use of marijuana by pregnant women in Jamaica. Dreher found that marijuana was being used in a cultural and medical context, as a way to relieve morning sickness or nausea, prevent depression and fatigue, and improve appetites. Her team observed both the mothers who used marijuana and their infants; they reported that there were no signs of birth defects or of behavioral problems in the marijuana-exposed children either during the month after birth or even several years after.

This is not to say that women should have no compunctions about using marijuana regularly and in large amounts during pregnancy. Rather, as scientists like Dreher argue, the medical community should improve its research methodologies, be more thorough, conduct more cross-cultural studies, and refrain from being so quick to conclude without solid evidence that any amount of marijuana use–no matter how slight–during pregnancy will do lasting harm to both mother and child. 

Melanie Dreher, RN, PhD, FAAN explains her cannabis and pregnancy research study in Jamaica. Pregnant women and their children were studied for over ten plus years, both marijuana smokers and non-smokers were included in the study – one of the first scientific studies of the effects that cannabis may have on pregnancy and the child’s development thereafter.

Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica: An Ethnographic Study

“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 non-exposed 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 non-using 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.

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;

judged to be more rewarding for caregivers than the neonates of non-using mothers at 1 month of age

Read the full article here:

http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/marijuana-cannabis-use-in-pregnancy-dr-melanie-dreher/

Watch Dr Melanie Dreher on Youtube:

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=K9WorIM0RhA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DK9WorIM0RhA

I am trying to help anyone that will here me. In 18 states cannabis is medically legal so please share this information because it could help someone in one of those states.....Aloha-Angie *:0)

Legal States:

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000881