Using Pot While Pregnant Can Result in Your Baby Having Development Issues

Pregnancy is supposed to be a wonderful and exciting time for expecting mothers. Eating right and keeping yourself healthy in every possible way should be your top priority so your baby is born happy and healthy too. With the legalization of marijuana becoming more popular across the states, however, more women are smoking while pregnant, risking not only their health but their child’s health and development as well. Primo Prevention is here to remind you that just because smoking might be legal in your state, it does not mean that it’s good for you or your little one.

Using Pot While Pregnant is a Recipe for Disaster for Your Health

Marijuana has many chemicals including the main bad actor: delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. This mind-altering chemical releases an over-powering amount of dopamine into your brain, causing serious side effects to various areas of your body.

One of the areas THC affects is your cerebellum and basal ganglia, which are parts of your brain that control motor functions. When you smoke marijuana, you may become dizzy and while being dizzy is never good, being dizzy while pregnant is a recipe for disaster. If you fall while pregnant, you risk injury or miscarriage. THC also effects your hippocampus, which allows you to process information. When your hippocampus’s function is altered by the chemicals in marijuana, your judgment becomes impaired. You could end up doing things you would never normally do, risking your baby’s health yet again.

Marijuana also lowers your immune system’s ability to fight off infections. When you’re pregnant, this is not only dangerous to your health but also your baby’s health. Catching a small cold that you would normally be able to fight off in a week or so may become a serious medical condition needing hospitalization. When pregnant, you must keep your immune system strong for you and your child.

Your Bouncing Baby Could Have Serious Health Issues if You Use While Pregnant

In addition to marijuana affecting you and your baby when you smoke during pregnancy, it will also directly affect your baby’s development and health throughout his or her life. Secondhand smoke during pregnancy or even after can harm your baby’s lungs. From asthma to other breathing problems, smoking pot while pregnant can end with your little one having serious lung issues.

Just as the chemicals in marijuana affect your brain, they also affect your child’s brain during pregnancy. The hippocampus in your baby’s brain may be affected by drug exposure. As the hippocampus helps your brain process information, using during pregnancy could result in your child having development issues and may lead them to suffer from learning disabilities and behavioral issues throughout his or her life.

What is scariest of all is how marijuana increases your heart rate. While that may not sound like it would do anything except produce a paranoid feeling, it could actually induce labor much earlier than expected. The risk for a stillbirth is much higher in women who use during pregnancy. In addition, babies whose mothers used marijuana while pregnant are significantly smaller than average.

All in all, using marijuana in any way during pregnancy is extremely harmful to you and your child. If you or someone you know wants to stop using pot while pregnant, ask for professional help in breaking habits and stabilizing health while quitting. Professionals and Primo Prevention can give you information on marijuana use during pregnancy. Take action today and help your child now and into the future.