University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers explored the association between in utero cannabis exposure and infant health care utilization. They found that those cannabis-exposed infants were no more likely to require emergency department care or suffer from developmental delays than non-exposed babies. The study findings published in Academic Pediatrics can inform policy development impacting women and children and help healthcare professionals address patient questions about cannabis use during pregnancy.
The cohort included Infants with a meconium drug screen conducted between 2014 and 2022, identified from the Carolina Data Warehouse. The researchers then linked the data with NC Medicaid claims to develop a merged dataset and then categorized the infants as cannabis-exposed (meconium positive for cannabis only) or substance-unexposed (meconium negative and urine absent/negative for all substances). There were 1,671 infants with a meconium screen positive for cannabis only and 2,599 infants negative for all substances.
The primary outcome was infant care attendance. Secondary outcomes included emergency department encounters and developmental delays during the first two years of life. The researchers used negative binomial and logistic regression to evaluate the association between cannabis exposure and outcomes.
When compared to unexposed children, those who were exposed to cannabis in utero have similar infant care appointment attendance and emergency department use rates over the first 2 years of life. The developmental delay outcomes at 2 years were similar for both cohorts at the 3-year point. There was a decrease in the odds of developmental delays in the first 2 years among cannabis-exposed infants and no difference at 3 years.
The findings corroborate other recent studies also documenting no differences in emergency department visits or developmental delays among cannabis-exposed and cannabis-unexposed children.
Sources: Academic Pediatrics, NORML
