O’Connor AB, et al. – Researchers desired to know whether maternal and infant outcomes were linked with exposure to marijuana during the third trimester in a population of opioid dependent pregnant women maintained on buprenorphine. They observed that marijuana exposure in the third trimester did not complicate the pregnancy or the delivery process. However, the severity of the infant withdrawal syndrome in the immediate postnatal period could be impacted by marijuana exposure.

Methods

• It was a retrospective cohort study.
• For this purpose, one hundred ninety-one maternal-infant dyads exposed to buprenorphine during pregnancy examines a variety of variables including gestational age, birthweight, method of delivery, Apgar scores at one and five minutes, duration of infant hospital stay, peak neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) score, duration of NAS and incidence of pharmacologic treatment of NAS in infants exposed to marijuana during the third trimester as compared to infants not exposed to marijuana during the third trimester.

Results

• According to the findings obtained, analyses failed to support any significant relationship between marijuana use in the third trimester and a variety of maternal and infant outcomes.
• The results of this study showed that two important variables - the likelihood of requiring pharmacologic treatment for NAS (27.6% in marijuana exposed infants vs. 15.7% in non-marijuana exposed infants, p = 0.066) and the duration of infant hospital stay (7.7 days in marijuana exposed infants vs. 6.6 day in non-exposed infants, p = 0.053) trended toward significance.