Undercooked eggs and meats, soft cheeses, high-mercury fish, hot dogs, deli slices, sprouts, unwashed produce, unpasteurized dairy products, junk food, kombucha, coffee, tea, caffeinated sodas, and alcohol. The lengthy list of no-noes for pregnant women just got a little longer, thanks to its latest (potential) addition: CBD products.
Touted as a natural treatment for the first-tri trademark nausea, among other things, CBD has been increasingly in use by pregnant women over the last few years. The green leaf byproduct is gaining momentum beyond the prenatal crowd for its ability to relieve pain, suppress nausea, and treat anxiety and insomnia.
“A perceived lack of risk may be contributing,” says Katie Toft, MD, clinical director for Premier OBGYN of Minnesota. “Changing social attitudes are contributing as well.” She notes that many people think of CBD as a more natural way to manage and treat their health symptoms. Though Toft hasn’t had many pregnant patients opt for CBD, she says, “I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.”
Marijuana use during pregnancy, on the other hand, is more widely studied—and one of the most common substances picked up by expectant moms. She points to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which reported increasing rates of use during the first trimester across all age groups from 2017 to 2019.
Far from considering it a natural treatment, the FDA advises against the use of cannabidiol (CBD), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and marijuana during pregnancy or while breastfeeding.
So, how bad really is using CBD for expecting women?
In the first study of its kind, recently published in the journal of Clinical Epigenetics, University of Minnesota researchers examined long-term impacts on offspring of mice, associated with the mother’s oral CBD use during pregnancy and nursing.
„These initial findings encourage caution in regard to women using CBD during pregnancy and nursing—compounds like CBD and THC cross the placenta easily and are found in breastmilk.” Christopher Faulk, University of Minnesota
“Adult animals who were exposed to CBD in the womb and during early life showed long-lasting changes to their cognitive (thinking) and affective (feeling) behavior, even after they had not been exposed to CBD for a long time,” says Christopher Faulk, Ph.D., assistant professor in functional genomics in the U’s animal science department. “These initial findings encourage caution in regard to women using CBD during pregnancy and nursing—compounds like CBD and THC cross the placenta easily and are found in breastmilk.”
Faulk and project lead Nicole Wanner, DVM, postdoctoral fellow in the college of veterinary medicine, found increased anxiety but also improved memory performance in adult female offspring, while males were unaffected. (This doesn’t bode well for us ladies—already more prone to anxiety.)
The study also uncovered that the CBD exposure shifted gene regulatory marks, which doesn’t mean a whole lot to us laypeople, but is a key finding for Faulk, Wanner, and the scientific community. These gene regulators, called epigenetic marks, Faulk says, “help direct the ‘when, where, and how much’ of our genes without modifying the underlying DNA sequence, similar to the way that adding a comma can change the meaning of a sentence.” Think: Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Scientists already know that epigenetic marks are involved in memory and mood and the U of M study is the first to show that the marks are affected by CBD. “We found that these epigenetic marks were significantly changed in the brains of mice exposed to CBD during development, particularly in genes controlling how brain cells grow and communicate,” Faulk says.
And why is this important, you might ask? The genes affected by CBD exposure in the womb are involved in brain development—specifically the formation of conditions like autism, epilepsy, and substance use disorder.
The main concern here is around the development of impressionable little brains. Faulk and Wanner are concerned about the long-term effects of indirect CBD exposure in the womb and through nursing, which led us to ask: Is there potential harm in the abundance of CBD products widely available to anyone?
It’s more complicated than you might think.
“The brain continues to mature into young adulthood and could therefore be more vulnerable,” Faulk says, to childhood exposure versus exposure in us well-aged folk. But, also concerning is the lack of standardization. “Purchasing age for CBD products is not currently well regulated, particularly online,” he says. The U of M team has a future study planned to examine to impact of CBD use during adolescence.
„Purchasing age for CBD products is not currently well regulated, particularly online.” Christopher Faulk, University of Minnesota
But there’s a catch: Those CBD lotions, soaps, and perfumes that are popping up on every endcap in the mall don’t necessarily pose danger. “When applied topically (in lotions or creams), little to no CBD reaches the bloodstream because of the compound’s lipophilic chemical structure,” Faulk says. So, while no formal studies have been carried out, he continues, “it is likely that this type of exposure would be lower risk.”
The type of genetic marker-altering exposure we’re talking about here is what Faulk calls “chronic CBD use,” which simply means daily dosage throughout pregnancy and nursing. The dosage the U team studied in mice was roughly equal to a 150-pound adult taking a full dropper (1 milliliter) of a high concentration CBD solution (1,000 milligrams) by mouth twice a day. The occasional dose, though, is a different story, Faulk says. “There is not enough evidence to definitively say that casual doses of CBD during pregnancy are harmful in people.”
While the overwhelming expert consensus is to not get baked with a bun in the oven, the risks and effects of CBD are still evolving. “Using CBD alone is a new phenomenon that has only become popular in the past several years,” Faulk says. “Because of this, science is still catching up.”