Examining the association between prenatal cannabis exposure and child autism traits: A multi-cohort investigation in the environmental influences on child health outcome program.
Chaela Nutor, Aisha S Dickerson, Tingju Hsu and 13 others
PMID 38953698WHAT IT FOUND
Prenatal cannabis exposure was not associated with autism traits or diagnosis once tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use were accounted for.
The apparent risk in unadjusted data disappeared when controlling for polydrug use.
Key findings
01Associations between prenatal cannabis exposure and autism traits or diagnosis were null after adjusting for prenatal tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug exposure.
02Child biological sex did not moderate the association between prenatal cannabis exposure and autism outcomes.
03Prenatal tobacco exposure alone was significantly associated with autism diagnosis, while cannabis exposure was not in the fully adjusted model.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study relies on self-reported substance use, which may be underreported due to social desirability bias. Data on the timing of cannabis exposure during pregnancy was not available, preventing analysis of critical windows. Most ASD diagnoses were parent-reported or from medical records, which may be influenced by access to care and socioeconomic factors. The study could not account for maternal prenatal stress, which is associated with both ASD risk and cannabis use.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the ECHO program. No specific commercial conflicts of interest were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the unadjusted findings as evidence that cannabis causes autism. The significant associations disappeared once other prenatal substance exposures, particularly tobacco, were controlled for.