Marijuana for nicer kids
Saturday, 06 September 2008
Ok, so this is just one study, but quite a surprise to me … I was researching negative effects of marijuanna on ovaries and came across a pretty interesting study done on Jamaican women who were heavy marijuana users. The short of it is that marijuana seems to greatly improve your experience of pregnancy and it gives your kids a stronger nervous system and better disposition. In the words of the researchers:
“Although marijuana use during pregnancy is discouraged in prenatal clinics and through government-sponsored prevention programs, the consumption of marijuana during pregnancy by Jamaican women is not necessarily indicative of a mother’s lack of concern about the health and development of her infant. Supported by the folk belief that marijuana has health-rendering properties and by the experience of relatives and neighbors, women use it as a vehicle for dealing with the difficult circumstances surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. For instance, 19 of the marijuana smokers in the sample reported that it increased their appetites throughout the prenatal period and / or relieved the nausea of pregnancy. Fifteen reported using it to relieve fatigue and provide rest during pregnancy. All the mothers considered the effects of marijuana on nausea and fatigue to be good for both themselves and their infants.”
The conclusion of the study demonstrated objective results:
“offspring of heavy-marijuana using mothers had significantly higher scores on the Orientation cluster, on the Autonomic Stability cluster, and on Reflexes (see Table 4). Due to the intercorrelation among the variables comprising each cluster, no t scores or P values are reported for individual items. Nevertheless, a comparison of individual item scores showed that neonates of heavy users had higher scores on habituation to auditory and tactile stimuli, and to animate auditory stimuli, the degree of alertness, capacity for consolability, irritability (ie, less irritable), and had fewer startles and tremors.” The comparisons on the supplementary items revealed significant differences on all seven variables, with the neonates of mothers who were heavy-marijuana users performing more optimally on these items.
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.
Received for publication Sep 21, 1992; accepted Jun 30, 1993.
Reprint requests to (M.D.) School of Nursing, the University of Massachusetts,
111 Arnold House, Amherst, MA 01003.
Pediatrics (ISSN 0031 4005). Copyright © 1994 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica:
An Ethnographic Study
Melanie C. Dreher, PhD; Kevin Nugent, PhD; and Rebekah Hudgins, MA