The article I found is a study based on the effects of marijuana
and cocaine on a fetus’s development. The study had 1,226 pregnant women studied
from a prenatal clinic. The study used the women’s urine to determine what
drugs they had used, and they found that 27% had tested positive for marijuana and
18% for cocaine. The first thing I thought of when reading this was what a high
number both are and I am surprised so many women were using drugs during their pregnancy.
They did a study were they just had the mothers self report if they had done
any drugs and they found that marijuana was used 23% while cocaine was used 13%
of the time. I’m not surprised the self report numbers are less since some
women I’m sure wouldn’t want to admit that they had used drugs during their pregnancy,
but yet again I am surprised by how high this number is. After the mothers gave
birth they then determined the infant’s weight, length and head circumference
and compared them. The results are what I would expect, that doing drugs showed
up in the infants measurements. Also marijuana had slightly less of an effect
on the infant then cocaine use, and that is also what I would expect. Mothers
who used cocaine saw their child be underweight compared to the non drug users,
and that cocaine use made the effect greater then marijuana. The infants whose
mothers did drugs also were shorter than the rest of the sample, and once again
cocaine caused a bigger difference then marijuana although it isn’t that significant.
The study concluded that using marijuana and/or cocaine while pregnant with
impair a fetus’s growth.
Zuckerman B, Frank DA, Hingson R, Amaro H, Levenson SM, Kayne H, Parker S, Vinci R, Aboagye K, Fried LE
Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Boston City Hospital, MA 02118.
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