Pregnant and smoking marijuana? Big mistake

At the end of its seven-year run, “Mad Men’s” producers admitted that, on screen, the characters smoked a whopping 942 cigarettes, several of them by protagonist Don Draper’s wife Betty while she was pregnant.

These days, you all know it’s dangerous to smoke cigarettes while pregnant; it leads to premature deliveries and babies with cognitive problems. And now research is showing it’s a good thing Betty didn’t smoke pot too, because marijuana comes with its own set of risks for unborn fetuses.

A study published in the Journal of Biosocial Science found that pregnant women who smoked marijuana – either for recreation or because they heard it can ease morning sickness or aches and pains – were almost three times more likely to have a baby born at a low birth weight compared to women who didn’t. Low birth weight is associated with greater infant mortality, asthma and poorer cognitive development. Pot-smoking while pregnant is also linked to the offspring developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes later in life.

This is especially concerning because marijuana use is up in pregnant woman, from 2.4 percent in 2012 to almost 4 percent in 2014. That’s about 160,000 women annually who are endangering their fetus by smoking pot. (And if you keep smoking pot after you give birth? Newborns exposed to THC can have problems with brain development.)

So, if you’re pregnant or a new mom, don’t take the risk. To ease nausea or pains, talk to your doc about other remedies that are safe for you

during pregnancy.