A new study by researchers at Laval University will attempt to fill the gap in quality scientific data regarding the impact on child development of cannabis use during pregnancy.
The research group will benefit from a $600,000 grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé to follow the cohort of children up to the age of 18, and a $2.3 million grant from Canadian Institutes of Health Research to follow her up to 30 months of age.
Researchers will focus in particular, over the next five years, on the motor, language and behavioral development of children. Some aspects will be evaluated by parents and others by scientists.
“There are very few contemporary studies that have addressed the question of the effects of cannabis on child development,” summarized Professor Gina Muckle, from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Laval University.
The handful of studies that have been done so far, she adds, suggest an association between cannabis use during pregnancy and increased impulsivity, decreased concentration and impacts on intellectual functioning.
A portrait that has evolved
However, these data are of questionable reliability, since these studies were carried out before the legalization of cannabis and sometimes with women who presented other risk factors, such as consumption of hard drugs or inadequate or non-existent pregnancy monitoring.
These studies also relied on self-reported data from the women regarding their cannabis use, which opens the door to several recall errors.
It is these gaps, and others, that the new study from Université Laval will seek to fill.
“The portrait of female users has changed considerably in this new context of legalization,” said Ms. Muckle. The majority of women in the general population who use cannabis do not use illegal drugs, the majority have good pregnancy monitoring… So we don’t know what the repercussions (of cannabis use) could be in this context. . »
Ms. Muckle and her colleague Richard E. Bélanger, from the Faculty of Medicine, want to recruit some 4,000 pregnant women and their partners during the first trimester of pregnancy. The clinical component of the project will be carried out at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Center by Dr. Emmanuel Bujold.
Cannabis exposure will be assessed using questionnaires and analysis of maternal hair samples, which will “allow us to have a better marker of fetal exposure,” Muckle explained. The follow-up of the mother and the child will make it possible to document the evolution of the pregnancy and the development of the fetus.
The most recent data from the Quebec Cannabis Survey show that, in 2021, 43% of young adults aged 21 to 24 had used cannabis in the past year, and 36% of those aged 25-34 years.
“We don’t know what proportion of these young adults who will use cannabis at the time of conceiving, then during pregnancy who will maintain their use, so it may be a fairly significant phenomenon, “said Mrs Muckle.
Data collected in Toronto in 2018 revealed that 14% of women used cannabis in early pregnancy, “but we think this phenomenon is considerably underestimated,” said the researcher.
“We are convinced that we need new, updated data that clearly reflect the portrait of consumption or fetal exposure today to be able to better guide future parents and those working with these parents,” said concluded Ms. Muckle.