Pregnancy & Infant Health
Healthy childhood development starts with healthy pregnancies and healthy infants. This section focuses on maternal behaviours while pregnant, indicators that measure the health of births in our community, and infant feeding.
Maternal Smoking and Cannabis Exposure
What does this measure?
The rate of maternal smoking rate is defined as the number of pregnant women who smoked cigarettes at time of the newborn’s birth, expressed as a proportion of all women who gave birth. Maternal cannabis exposure rate is the percentage of women who were exposed to cannabis during pregnancy as a proportion of all women who gave birth. This section uses data from the Better Outcomes Registry and Network (BORN)
Why is this important?
Maternal cigarette smoking can have adverse health effects on the fetus and child. It increases the risk of:
- problems with prenatal growth
- preterm births
- miscarriages
- placental complications
- stillbirths
- sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
- infant mortality and morbidity.
Research also suggests longer term adverse effects of smoking during pregnancy, such as:
- long-term behavioural problems including inattention and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
- some childhood cancers, including central nervous system tumours, leukemias and lymphomas
- asthma in young children
- impaired pulmonary function in all stages of life
There is no known safe amount of cannabis use during pregnancy. If the mother is exposed to cannabis during pregnancy, a newborn has more risk lower birth weight and lower alertness. These risks can lead to health problems for a growing child. Use of cannabis during pregnancy may affect a child’s brain development, behaviour and mental health into adolescence and early adulthood. The more cannabis is taken during pregnancy, the more it affects the baby’s developing brain, with daily use having the greatest risk. Cannabis use may also affect a mother’s health during and after pregnancy.
How are Hastings and Prince Edward Counties doing?
Hastings and Prince Edward Counties (HPEC) has rates of smoking during pregnancy that are more than twice as high as the provincial average. Maternal cannabis exposure in HPEC is 2.5 times higher than the province with 1 in 10 new mother’s reporting cannabis exposure during pregnancy.
Notes about the data
Data for exposure to cannabis during pregnancy should be interpreted with caution because of the high proportion of records with missing data. Cannabis use was legalized in Canada on October 17, 2018, which is driving the increase in 2019 and 2020. It is unclear if this increase is due to more use or more disclosure due to legalization.