The whole point of free speech is not to make ideas exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

What do you make of this?

From PEDIATRICS magazine:

Objective. To determine the mortality rate, during the first 2 years of life, in infants who were exposed to cocaine, opiate, or cannabinoid during gestation.

Methods. For a period of 11 months, a large group of infants were enrolled and screened at birth for exposure to cocaine, opiate, or cannabinoid by meconium analysis. Death outcome, within the first 2 years after birth, was determined in this group of infants using the death registry of the Michigan Department of Public Health.

Results. A total of 2964 infants was studied. At birth, 44% of the infants tested positive for drugs: 30.5% positive for cocaine, 20.2% for opiate, and 11.4% for cannabinoids. Compared to the drug negative group, a significantly higher percentage (P < .05) of the drug positive infants had lower weight and smaller head circumference and length at birth and a higher percent of their mothers were single, multigravid, multiparous, and had little to no prenatal care. Within the first 2 years of life, 44 infants died: 26 were drug negative (15.7 deaths per 1000 live births) and 18 were drug positive (13.7 deaths per 1000 live births). The mortality rate among cocaine, opiate, or cannabinoid positive infants were 17.7, 18.4, and 8.9 per 1000 live births, respectively. Among infants with birth weight ≤2500 g, infants who were positive for both cocaine and morphine had a higher mortality rate (odds ratio = 5.9, confidence interval [CI] = 1.4 to 24) than drug negative infants. Eleven infants died from the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS); 58% were positive for drugs, predominantly cocaine. The odds ratio for SIDS among drug positive infants was 1.5 (CI = 0.46 to 5.01) and 1.9 (CI = 0.58 to 6.2) among cocaine positive infants.

Conclusion. We conclude that prenatal drug exposure in infants, although associated with a high perinatal morbidity, is not associated with an overall increase in their mortality rate or incidence of SIDS during the first 2 years of life. However, a significantly higher mortality rate was observed among low birth weight infants (≤2500 g) who were positive for both cocaine and opiate.

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It appears to me that the study shows this:

"No drugs at birth" deaths....... 15.7 deaths per 1000 live births "Cocaine positive" deaths.......17.7 deaths per 1000 live births "Opiate positive" deaths..........18.4 deaths per 1000 live births "Cannabis positive" deaths....... 8.9 deaths per 1000 live births
One might conclude that using cannabis during pregnancy might be safer for your baby than not using it.

4 comments:

larry kurtz said...

i have been thinking about the evolution of smoking for about the last ten years.

Learning that moving fire from place to place by a hunter-gatherer in an antler or horn is effective predator and pest control. Each culture had suitable dried material at hand for the purpose. Tobacco, cannabis, and other materials co-evolved for use by humans. It is only realistic to conclude that genetics determined how adaptations manifested in infants.

Beekeepers use smoke to soothe bees in hives.

Was this the impetus for your eureka moment?


ingstra

repete said...

Imagine the prenatal health campaign this would inspire IF the word was 'aspirin' instead of 'cannabis' in this report.

taco said...

Astonishing!

BF said...

Here's a more recent article, Bob.

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/155/7/765