Pot Smoking by Parents Tied to Risk of Psychotic Episodes in Kids

News
1

Cannabis use by mothers or fathers during pregnancy, or even only before pregnancy, is associated with an increased risk of psychotic-like episodes in their children, a Dutch study suggests.

Because pot use by mothers and fathers carried similar risk, and a mother’s use before pregnancy had the same effect as use during pregnancy, the study team speculates that parental pot use is likely a marker for genetic and environmental vulnerability to psychotic experiences rather than a cause, and could be useful for screening kids at risk for psychosis later in life.

Babies exposed to cannabis in the womb do have an increased risk of being underweight and unusually small when they’re born and developing cognitive and behavior problems early in life, the researchers note in a paper in the journal Schizophrenia Research, online July 6. Cannabis can also cause hallucinations in adults, particularly with frequent use and at high doses, but less is known about the potential for infants exposed to the drug in the womb to develop psychotic-like symptoms.

For the study, researchers examined data from questionnaires asking 3,692 10-year-olds whether they had symptoms that are similar to what adults might experience with psychosis: hearing voices that nobody else detects, seeing things others don’t see, and having thoughts that others might find strange.

They also examined mothers’ reports on their own marijuana use as well as any use by their partners, and they also looked at lab tests for signs of cannabis in mothers’ urine.

When mothers used marijuana during pregnancy, children were 38 percent more likely to have these psychotic-like symptoms than the children of mothers who abstained from use during pregnancy, the study found. But children of mothers who used pot only before, but not during, pregnancy also had a 39 percent higher risk than the kids of mothers who didn’t use it.

Fathers’ cannabis use during pregnancy, meanwhile, was associated with a 44 percent greater likelihood of psychotic-like experiences in their kids.

“Some children with psychotic experiences are at increased risk to develop psychosis or other psychiatric disorders,” said lead study author Dr. Koen Bolhuis, a researcher at Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

https://www.psychcongress.com/news/pot-smoking-parents-tied-risk-psychotic-episodes-kids

5 Likes
2

“Fathers’ cannabis use during pregnancy, meanwhile, was associated with a 44 percent greater likelihood of psychotic-like experiences in their kids.”

It s fascinating that a father’s actions has such an effect on something that isn’t even in his body. I can only guess that the mother’s second hand smoke inhalation affects the pregnancy?

3

I made my baby grow up to be psychotic! :sob:

4

Unbelievable! 15

1 Like
5

Really unbelievable, indeed!!!

1 Like
6

This study could only be possible in the Netherlands :sweat_smile: at least in Europe.
I think it’s a good thing to know the risks while you do drugs or alcohol.
But I think it’s a odds game, my family don’t have nobody with this illness, my mum never did drugs, my dad either, only smoked cigars and it was before I was born. Yet I’m the 1st to have this illness in my family, so maybe sometimes you just need luck.
You never know what pranks the destiny holds, just because you did something doesn’t mean you’re dooming ur kids :wink:

1 Like
7

While it says the children were only 10 I think that if you were raised in a household that openly smoked marijuana in the past, then usually the children aren’t to shy to try it themselves. Albeit not at the age of ten but would come into play in a longer term study.

8

How does that even make sense?

1 Like
9

Exactly! I question the study altogether.

Perhaps, someone knows how it is possible? Osmosis :smiley:

It is a correlation not a cause.

The only way I could guess it is that if the father smokes before conception it might make some epigenetic changes to his sperm and thus possibly alter the his dna and that of the child’s.

10

Did you even read this? It’s evidence against parents’ cannabis smoking being causally related to psychosis in children. If cannabis use caused psychosis in children, you would expect a higher effect of maternal use and a much higher effect of use during pregnancy than before it. That’s not what they find. They find similar rates for both men and women, and almost identical rates for use during and before pregnancy. That’s exactly what you would expect if the cannabis use itself was irrelevant to the correlation between parents’ cannabis use and the development of psychosis in their children.

2 Likes
11

Thanks for clearing that up for me. :slight_smile:

1 Like
12

This seems to sum things up.

1 Like
13

You left out the key part of the studies findings… It says in the article, " study team speculates that parental pot use is likely a marker for genetic and environmental vulnerability to psychotic experiences rather than a cause." I can agree with speculation that the pot use before for fathers affects the baby. The part I don’t agree with is that a father smoking pot not around the pregnant mother during pregnancy affects the baby. It seems like a classic case of correlation without causation. In addition, the article and therefore possibly the study contradicts itself from the beginning to the end.

14

LMAO sorry I didn’t see your response when I posted…