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The association between prenatal cannabis use and congenital birth defects in offspring: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2024

A. W. Tadesse ,
G. Ayano ,
B. A. Dachew ,
B. S. Tusa ,
Y. Damtie ,
K. Betts  and
R. Alati
A. W. Tadesse*
Affiliation:
1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
G. Ayano
Affiliation:
2School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Austria
B. A. Dachew
Affiliation:
1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
B. S. Tusa
Affiliation:
1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Y. Damtie
Affiliation:
1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
K. Betts
Affiliation:
1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
R. Alati
Affiliation:
1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

A body of research has examined the association between prenatal cannabis use and congenital birth defects in offspring; however, these studies have not been synthesised. We performed a comprehensive synthesis of existing research to test whether there is an association between prenatal cannabis use and congenital birth defects in exposed offspring.

Objectives

The aim of this study was to conduct a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of existing evidence to synthesise the association between prenatal cannabis use and congenital birth defects in exposed offspring.

Methods

In line with the preregistered protocol (PROSPERO: CRD42022368623), we systematically searched PubMed/Medline, CINHAL, EMBASE, Web of Science, ProQuest, Psych-Info, and Google Scholar for published articles until 4 April 2023. The methodological quality of the included studies was appraised by the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS). A meta-analysis was carried out to report the pooled effect estimates from the included studies. We further performed subgroup, leave-one-out sensitivity, and meta-regression analyses, which increased the robustness of our findings.

Results

Thirty observational studies (i.e., fifteen case-control and fifteen cohort studies) with 229,930 cases of birth defects and 26,826,741 controls (healthy babies) were included in the final analysis. We found that offspring exposed to maternal prenatal cannabis had a 56%, 69%, 47%, 23%, and 13% increased risk of any birth defects (irrespective of specific body system) [RR = 1.56: 95 % CI 1.28 – 1.92], defects of the gastrointestinal [RR = 1.69: 95 % CI 1.37 – 2.09], cardiovascular/heart [RR = 1.47: 95 % CI 1.09 – 1.97], central nervous systems [RR = 1.43: 95 % CI 1.09 – 1.89], and facial/oral cleft [RR = 1.13: 95 % CI 1.08 – 1.18], respectively.

Conclusions

The findings from the current study suggest that maternal prenatal cannabis exposure is associated with a higher risk of birth defects in offspring. The findings highlight the importance of promotive and preventive strategies to reduce cannabis use during pregnancy that contribute to minimising the risk of birth defects in offspring.

Disclosure of Interest

None Declared

Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 67 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 32nd European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2024 , pp. S67
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of European Psychiatric Association
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