The prevalence of marijuana use among pregnant teenagers is more than double that among teens who are not pregnant, according to a study involving 410,000 females aged 12-44 years.
For pregnant teens aged 12-17 years, the past-month prevalence of marijuana use was 14% between 2002 and 2015, compared with 6.5% for their nonpregnant peers, Nora D. Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Md., and her associates reported in a letter on April 17 (Ann Intern Med. 2017 Apr 17. doi: 10.7326/L17-0067).
The pattern of use in the youngest age group “may reflect underlying risky behavior common to both teen pregnancy and early substance use and suggests the importance of intervention for teenagers,” the researchers wrote. “Because of consistent overlap between use of marijuana and other substances, identification of marijuana use during pregnancy warrants evaluation for comorbid substance abuse.”
The overall annual average prevalence of marijuana use was 3.8% among the 14,400 pregnant women and 7.5% for the 395,600 nonpregnant women who responded to the survey from 2002 to 2015. The investigators also found that marijuana use was higher in the first trimester (6.4%) than in the second (3.3%) or third (1.8%) trimesters and that use was higher in pregnant black women (6.5%) than in white (3.8%) or Hispanic women(2.9%) or women of other races/ethnicities (1.4%).
Although evidence on the effects of marijuana on prenatal development is limited, “pregnant females and those considering becoming pregnant should be advised not to use marijuana or other cannabinoids recreationally or to treat nausea,” Dr. Volkow and her associates wrote.
The study was sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Dr. Volkow reported having no financial disclosures. One coauthor reported stock ownership of Pfizer, and another reported stock ownership of Sanofi and Eli Lilly.