San Francisco, CA: Infants who test positive for prenatal cannabis exposure are not at higher risk of being diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or DBD (Disruptive Behavior Disorder) in early adolescence, according to data published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
Investigators affiliated with the University of California at San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente assessed the relationship between in-utero cannabis exposure and behavioral outcomes in a cohort of over 141,000 children born between 2011 and 2018. Children were followed up to a maximum age of 11.
“Maternal prenatal cannabis use was not associated with ADHD, and there was an inverse association with DBD,” researchers determined.
They added: “The data reflect offspring population-level outcomes and do not predict the outcome for any individual. Additional research is needed to tease apart the mechanisms underlying the inverse association between prenatal cannabis use and the risk of ADHD and DBD.”
The lack of association between prenatal cannabis exposure and ADHD is consistent with previous findings.
Several members of the same research team published separate studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association, finding that prenatal cannabis exposure is not positively associated with elevated rates of either childhood autism or an increased risk of early childhood developmental delays.
Studies assessing the relationship between in-utero cannabis exposure and various neonatal outcomes, such as birth weight, have historically yielded inconsistent results. However, longitudinal data suggests that cannabis exposure is not typically associated with adverse neurodevelopmental consequences in late adolescence, finding, “Although there is a theoretical potential for cannabis to interfere with neurodevelopment, human data drawn from four prospective cohorts have not identified any long-term or long-lasting meaningful differences between children exposed in utero to cannabis and those not.”
Full text of the study, “Prenatal cannabis use and offspring Attention Hyperactivity Disorder and Disruptive Behavior Disorders: A retrospective cohort study,” appears in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.