The harmful effects of cannabis are now known: concentration problems, depression, onset of psychosis, respiratory diseases… But without consuming it directly, the risks also exist, including for babies who are exposed to it in uterowarns a study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Previous studies had already pointed to certain difficulties for children who had been in contact with marijuana before birth, such as sleep complicationscognitive limitations, or the fact that babies were born with lower weights.
More anxiety and depression
This time, American researchers relied on a study of 12,000 children. Purpose ? Evaluate their cognitive development and study their brains. In this study, the children were on average 9 to 10 years old, in 2020.
Two years later, then aged 11 to 12, the children were again studied, from the point of view of psychological pathologies. The researchers were interested in the substances to which they had been exposed in utero, particularly cannabis.
They realized that some symptoms could be correlated to having been in contact with this substance : the children in question were more likely than the others to be anxious and depressed. In addition, scientists are concerned that this population is more inclined to consume itself at adolescent age.
Source: Association of Mental Health Burden With Prenatal Cannabis Exposure From Childhood to Early Adolescence, JAMA Pediatrics, September 12, 2022.