A website called Disrn reports the findings of a study looking at autism. Hat tip to Stephen Green at Instapundit for the link.
A recent analysis of more than 500,000 Canadian mothers and their children revealed a 50% increase in the risk of autism in kids whose mothers had used marijuana while pregnant, according to a report published Monday in Nature Medicine.
Researchers found that the rate of autism diagnoses among children with in utero cannabis exposure was 2.2%. Of those whose mothers did not use the drug during pregnancy, only 1.4% were diagnosed with autism.
While it is tempting to speculate that cannabis exposure caused autism, it is equally possible that those mothers with a genetic predisposition to autism were more likely to use marijuana as a form of self-medication. Correlational studies, like this, point to the likelihood of a relationship between two things shown to correlate, but do not establish causality.
On the other hand, if you contemplate pregnancy, avoiding marijuana wouldn’t do any harm, and could benefit your baby.
