Morning sickness no call for cannabis
DEAR DOCTOR: I read that more women are using marijuana for morning sickness. This doesn’t seem like a good idea, but for women with severe morning sickness, might it be an option? Could it really hurt the baby?
DEAR READER: While it’s true that smoking cannabis has been shown to ease nausea, when it comes to morning sickness, we do not recommend it. Cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, and at the state level is subject to a tangled and often conflicting patchwork of regulations. That means many of its prospective medical applications have not yet undergone the robust and rigorous study needed to ascertain efficacy, safety and dosage parameters.
For women considering smoking or ingesting cannabis while pregnant, it’s important to understand that the placenta allows its psychoactive component, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, to reach the developing fetus. Some studies have suggested a link between cannabis use in pregnant women with low-birth-weight babies and impaired neurological development. The recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is that women who are pregnant, as well as those who plan to be, should not use
cannabis.
On a related note, we heard from many of you after the publication of the column about CBD, or cannabidiol. CBD is one of over 100 cannabinoids found in Cannabis sativa and unlike THC, is not psychoactive. CBD has been shown to have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-seizure and anti-anxiety properties, and has great therapeutic potential. We stated that despite the explosion of CBD products now available, none were FDA-approved.
At the time we wrote the column, this was true. However, several weeks later, the first CBD medication received FDA approval. Called Epidiolex, it’s a treatment for seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, two rare and severe forms of epilepsy. Epidiolex is the first FDA-approved use of CBD, and the only treatment for Dravet syndrome to get FDA approval.
Elizabeth Ko, M.D., is an internist and assistant professor of medicine at UCLA Health.
Send your questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla.edu, or write: Ask the Doctors, c/o Media Relations, UCLA Health, 924 Westwood Blvd., Suite 350, Los Angeles, CA 90095.