Monday Health Burst

It is often the desire of many couples to conceive and bear their child. While some due to one medical situation or the other find it impossible, and have to resort to adoption, surrogate mothers, etc., others are often fortunate to bear a child. Dr Kristen Cherney in a 2019 Health line publication defined pregnancy as a process that takes place when a sperm fertilizes an egg after it is released from the ovary during ovulation. The fertilized egg then travels down into the uterus, where implantation occurs. A successful implantation results in pregnancy. On average, a full-term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

Many factors can affect a pregnancy. When a woman is pregnant, everything that goes into her body has the potential to affect her unborn baby. Smoking, drinking alcohol, abusing prescription drugs or using illicit drugs can all pass through the placenta and have a negative effect on her and her baby. According to Florida Health, illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine aren’t the only drugs that are harmful to fetal development; Commonly used over-the-counter medicines, along with substances such as caffeine and alcohol, can have lasting effects on an unborn child.

It is possible that one may not have a serious or long-lasting problem after using drugs. But the same is not always true for a fetus. Studies show that using drugs — legal or illegal — during pregnancy has a direct impact on the fetus. If a pregnant woman smokes, drink alcohol, or ingest caffeine, so does the fetus. If she uses marijuana or crystal meth, her fetus also feels the impact of these dangerous drugs. And if she is addicted to cocaine — also called coke, snow, or blow — she is not only putting her own life on the line, but risking the health of her unborn baby. The consequences of using cocaine include heart attacks, respiratory failure, strokes, and seizures. And these life-threatening health problems can also be passed to an unborn baby.

According to an article titled “Drug Use and Pregnancy” by WebMD, taking drugs during pregnancy also increases the chance of birth defects, premature babies, underweight babies, and stillborn births. Exposure to drugs such as marijuana and alcohol before birth has been proven to cause behaviour problems in early childhood. This article also went further to elaborate that these drugs taken by a pregnant woman can also affect the child’s memory and attentiveness. For instance, babies who are exposed to cocaine tend to have smaller heads that indicate a lower IQ. Other effects of illicit substance use include injury to the fetus by the forceful contraction of muscles of the uterus, the dysfunctional placenta usually caused by blood vessels constricting, thus reducing the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the fetus, etc.

Illicit substance use in pregnancy remains a significant public health problem, which can lead to several harmful maternal and neonatal outcomes. Which drug is being used and the degree of use, as well as the point of exposure, all influence the effects of drug use in pregnancy. In addition to the direct effects of drug exposure in utero, several other variables are associated with deleterious maternal and infant consequences, including psychiatric comorbidity, polysubstance use, limited prenatal care, environmental stressors and disrupted parental care. In conjunction, these factors can negatively influence pregnancy and infant outcomes, and should be taken in to account when interventions and programs for prenatal substance use treatments are developed.

Monday Health Burst is an initiative of CFHI to address issues of basic health concerns. Join us every Monday for more interesting episodes.