Key points
- Pregnant women with cannabis use disorder (CUD) had a 10 percent rate of postpartum psychiatric emergency visits, compared to 2.7 percent among those without the disorder.
- CUD during pregnancy was linked to a 40 percent higher risk of psychiatric emergency visits during the first postpartum year.
- Diagnoses of CUD in pregnant women in California rose by about 40 percent over six years.
Women diagnosed with cannabis use disorder during pregnancy were more likely to end up in an emergency room for a psychiatric problem in the year after giving birth, according to a study of more than 2 million California deliveries.
The study was conducted by UC Merced public health Professor Sidra Goldman-Mellor and graduate student LaMecia De Alba, along with researchers from Michigan State University and UCLA. The findings were published in the journal “Annals of Epidemiology.”
It showed that 10 percent of women with cannabis use disorder (CUD) — a medical diagnosis for people who keep using cannabis despite harm to their health, relationships or responsibilities — made a psychiatric emergency visit in their postpartum year, compared to 15.6 percent of women with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and less than 3 percent of women without cannabis or alcohol use disorder.
“One in 10 of the women who were diagnosed with cannabis use disorder during pregnancy went on to have a psychiatric emergency department visit in the postpartum year,” Goldman-Mellor said. “These aren’t just women saying, ‘I feel depressed.’ These are psychiatric symptoms serious enough that they had to go to the emergency room.”
During the six-year study period, CUD among pregnant women increased by 40 percent, whereas the incidence of AUD remained flat.
“It suggests there is a growing population of women who are using cannabis to a problematic extent when they’re pregnant, and that group is at higher risk of serious psychiatric problems,” Goldman-Mellor said.
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