shishigami
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2011
- Messages
- 890
Just because your one example doesn't agree with the study doesn't mean it's a load of shit.
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DPMC Moderators: tryptakid
Ecstasy Use During Pregnancy May Harm Fetus: Study
- Thread starter edgarshade
- Start date
Just because your one example doesn't agree with the study doesn't mean it's a load of shit.
rangrz
Bluelighter
Why? Because we know first hand that ALL drugs are harmful during pregnancy? Allowing us to conclude since MDMA is a drug, it must be harmful.
Problem: Some are harmful, some are not, no hard and fast rule applies. So the answer of what is and what is not, and how greatly harmful it is, all need to be found empirically.
Otherwise, your argument can be reduced to "because, fuck you, thats why" which is not the strongest of arguments.
It's standard procedure to have opiate addicted women who have become pregnant to not stop taking opiates because the harm from withdrawal is worse than what any opiate will do to the fetus, so there's not a universal rule on drug use during pregnancy, but for the most part, drugs should be abstained from during pregnancy. I imagine any amphetamine like drug would be more harmful than other since they've been shown to be neurotoxic even at mild doses.
ebola?
Bluelight Crew
rangrz said:
because monoamine releasers are well known to be strongly teratogenic, and it would be utterly bizarre if MDMA were an exception.
ebola
xstayfadedx
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2011
- Messages
- 20,559
If I ever become pregnant in the future I'm not taking my anti-depressant let alone ecstasy.
Are you sure about this? My wife has been on a prescription for Adderall for a while, and when she became pregnant she, of course, stopped taking it. But then, when she started struggling to maintain her level of performance at her job, she started checking into the studies and speaking with midwives and an obstetrician. Generally, they would always first give her the safe, err-on-the-side-of-caution, cover-my-ass response, advising her against taking it. But when pressed for a source, and in our own searches for journal articles, we found that there are no studies conclusively demonstrating either safety or hazard for amphetamine.
Amphetamine is classified as a category C drug in pregnancy, which is defined as: "Animal reproduction studies have shown an adverse effect on the fetus and there are no adequate and well-controlled studies in humans, but potential benefits may warrant use of the drug in pregnant women despite potential risks."
Already, the classification system acknowledges that there may be cases in which the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks (a la the far-fetched example I gave for the MDMA and PTSD).
Additionally, I found the details on those animal studies and found them to be rather stretched to begin with. There were 2 studies, one with rats and rabbits, and another one with mice, both of which were given doses vastly exceeding the comparative maximum doses for humans. The rat and rabbit study found no effect on the development of the fetuses. The mouse study did observe fetal malformations and death. However, the drugs were administered a dose comparable to 6 times my wife's daily dosage, and the dose was administered by injection. The study also mentioned that this dose and route was also associated with severe maternal toxicity.
I think it goes without saying that if the dosage (of ANYTHING) is high enough to be severely toxic to the mother, the fetus will suffer as a result. Even if the drug itself never crosses the placenta and directly affects the fetus, the damage to the mother will indirectly affect the fetus.
I really don't feel like either one of these studies effectively demonstrates a teratogenic effect from this drug. Here are the summarized details of those 2 studies.
Finally - as far as we were ever able to find, there has been only ONE documented case of a woman using amphetamines and subsequently giving birth to a malformed baby.
As shown here, the woman was also taking Lovastatin, which is a category X drug for pregnancy, which are for drugs that have well-documented and controlled evidence of teratogenicity in humans. The potential risk of category X drugs is considered to always outweigh the potential benefits. So, this one example is a very poor one, since the woman was taking a DIFFERENT drug that has been proven to cause deformities.
So, apparently all modern medicine has to offer us in terms of information on the safety of amphetamine while pregnant:
"If you take a whole bunch of it, like, enough to make you almost die, it will probably hurt your child. And one time a woman took it and also ate pills labeled 'These will deform your child', and she ended up with a deformed child!"
Captain.Heroin
Bluelight Crew
Some women may unwillingly eat it without having realized they're pregnant yet.
Especially if you're young, using MDMA/LSD/other hallucinogens, having sex... it happens.
ebola?
Bluelight Crew
No, I'm not, and it seems that you have researched the matter a great deal more than I. However, I would be wary of effects more subtle than abject malformation, which might appear at lower doses. Granted, it becomes difficult to generalize from higher doses, but why not err on the side of caution?
Amphetamine is highly orally bioavailable, and six times the therapeutic dose is nowhere near a physiologically dangerous dose.
ebola
skillet
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2010
- Messages
- 1,138
Scureto, did you miss this bit of your quote - "A number of studies in rodents indicate that prenatal or early postnatal exposure to amphetamine (d- or d,l-), at doses similar to those used clinically, can result in long-term neurochemical and behavioral alterations. Reported behavioral effects include learning and memory deficits, altered locomotor activity, and changes in sexual function."
Darksidesam
Bluelight Crew
Busty St Clare
Ex-Bluelighter
Unless you are employed by the nazis or the Japanese emperial army you won't find any studies that use humans fetuses as fucking guinea pigs. That is why this study interviewd a sample of mothers after birth. There are many drugs that are classified not to be given to pregnant women solely due to common sense and a "hunch". Botox is one such example . If a women suffers from PTSD wouldn't common sense suggest that having a baby would cause even greater stress? If you are happy to use your own kids as an experiment then I weep for their future.
Captain.Heroin
Bluelight Crew
That's what people do to their kids though man... I weep for their future too.
I don't think having to give birth to a child would induce PTSD symptoms. I'm sure as painful as childbirth could be for a woman, it's not the same as having a gun stuck to your head.
Why you so judgmental Busty? Normally I only get chill vibes off of ya.
Its very easy to feel like you are always right if you ignore what people actually say, don't bother to actually listen or read it, and/or transmute what they are actually saying into a straw-man that is easy for you to knock down. I never said anything about my wife and I using our child as a guinea pig. I was simply lamenting the lack of available medical information on the topic, as a way of supporting the study this thread was originally written about.
Honestly, though, I am not going to bother breaking down the rest of the drivel you posted. It was worth the long effort to respond to Ebola, based on his posts in the past. But you, based on your response, show a very poor understanding of what was even being discussed and an easy prediction that any further response will be just as poorly understood.
Honestly, though, I am not going to bother breaking down the rest of the drivel you posted. It was worth the long effort to respond to Ebola, based on his posts in the past. But you, based on your response, show a very poor understanding of what was even being discussed and an easy prediction that any further response will be just as poorly understood.
I do agree that, in the case of my wife and I, it is better for us to err on the side of caution, since her ADHD is fairly mild and she only suffers slightly from the lack of the medicine. It just makes a very good point from which to advocate for more investigation, and more honesty by doctors and others about what the studies actually show, rather than for people to simply shriek from what they think is a moral high-ground about the issue. "Err on the side of caution" is generally a good policy for individuals with respect to their children, but a terrible policy for the advancement of science and medical knowledge.
Most people would agree that pregnant women shouldn't be popping oxycodone, but nobody breaks out the torches and pitchforks for women who get epidurals, simply because the research has actually been done and people have been properly educated.
"Administration of these doses was also associated with severe maternal toxicity."
My big gripe about the dosage is that if the study is going to be used as evidence for or against the risk of fetal developmental problems in humans, it would make a lot more sense to include a range of dosage levels that cover the whole spectrum of therapeutic doses taken by humans. It seems the investigators' goal was to produce a study with dramatic, exciting results, rather than to produce the most useful and meaningful data possible.
I didn't miss that - that part is actually the biggest piece of info that pointed us towards "err on the side of caution". However, that statement leaves a lot of ambiguity and a lot of questions that I wasn't able to find the answer to, because I couldn't find those studies. The inclusion of "or early postnatal" seems to suggest that the doses were given directly to the baby "at doses similar to those used clinically". That would be dramatically higher than the dose a fetus would receive through the placenta if the mother took a dose "similar to those used clinically".
slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
Lots of people out there - including in this thread - claim that they cannot imagine why a pregnant woman would ever use drugs.
But, as I and others have said before, people simply use drugs. It is a fact of life, and it is true in every culture, in every period of human history.
My friend lived in Saudi Arabia for several years. Alcohol was illegal. So people drank perfume. They just wanted to alter their consciousness.
Do you imagine that this basic facet of humans is automatically turned off during pregnancy?
While I do not personally support the use of drugs during pregnancy - including drugs such as caffeine, sugar, and pain medications commonly used during labor - I also recognize that people use drugs for different reasons.
One relatively common use of MDMA is for psychotherapeutic reasons.
Should we assume that pregnant women are all very sane? Bad assumption, based on personal experience.
So, in addition to simply getting high, I can easily imagine some woman wanting to heal trauma or deal with some psychological problems (PTSD or otherwise) while pregnant.
While using drugs can be very risky to a developing fetus, and we should encourage her to use therapy sessions, etc. instead of taking drugs, I can easily understand why some people would want to use drugs. And I would not want to simply say "any pregnant woman who uses any drug is irresponsible and doesn't deserve a baby" or anything that closed-minded.
But, as I and others have said before, people simply use drugs. It is a fact of life, and it is true in every culture, in every period of human history.
My friend lived in Saudi Arabia for several years. Alcohol was illegal. So people drank perfume. They just wanted to alter their consciousness.
Do you imagine that this basic facet of humans is automatically turned off during pregnancy?
While I do not personally support the use of drugs during pregnancy - including drugs such as caffeine, sugar, and pain medications commonly used during labor - I also recognize that people use drugs for different reasons.
One relatively common use of MDMA is for psychotherapeutic reasons.
Should we assume that pregnant women are all very sane? Bad assumption, based on personal experience.
So, in addition to simply getting high, I can easily imagine some woman wanting to heal trauma or deal with some psychological problems (PTSD or otherwise) while pregnant.
While using drugs can be very risky to a developing fetus, and we should encourage her to use therapy sessions, etc. instead of taking drugs, I can easily understand why some people would want to use drugs. And I would not want to simply say "any pregnant woman who uses any drug is irresponsible and doesn't deserve a baby" or anything that closed-minded.
ebola?
Bluelight Crew
Right, hence why pregnant women planning to keep the child would do well to err on the side of caution. This prescription is quite the non-sequitor when applied to practices of scientific investigation.
Well, using a moderate dose of amphetamine once during the extreme late term of pregnancy likely wouldn't be too bad either. This comparison is flawed.
Okay. So while we await further research, erring on the side of caution has merit.
ebola