Marijuana / Cannabis Use In Pregnancy – Dr. Melanie Dreher

"If (Marijuana) were unknown, and bio-prospectors were suddenly to find it in some remote mountain crevice, it's discovery would no doubt be hailed as a medical breakthrough. Scientists would praise it's potential for treating everything from pain to cancer and marvel at it's rich pharmacopoeia; many of whose chemicals mimic vital molecules in the human body." - The Economist

Melanie Dreher, who is the dean of nursing at Rush Medical Center in Chicago, did a study in Jamaica. It was actually published in the American Journal of Pediatrics in 1994, but now it’s re-circulating because of all the interest in the neuroprotective properties. Basically, she studied women during their entire pregnancy, and then studied the babies about a year after birth. And what she studied was a group of women who did smoke cannabis during pregnancy and those who didn’t. She expected to see a difference in the babies as far as birth weight and neuro tests, but there was no difference whatsoever. The differences that the researchers did notice, that are unexplained and kind of curious are that the babies of the women who had smoked cannabis — and we’re talking about daily use during their pregnancy — socialized more quickly, made eye contact more quickly and were easier to engage. We don’t know why this is so, but all the old saws of smoking during pregnancy will result in low birth weight did not show up — at least in the Jamaican study. In U.S. studies where we’ve seen a similar investigation, women have concurrently been abusing alcohol and other drugs as well. Source - https://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com