My take on the most recent paper on cannabis use and human milk published in Pediatrics in August 2018. I begin this post with my summary of the paper and what I believe are the most important take-away messages - at the end, I integrate what we learned in 2018 with the pre-existing scientific literature.

Dr. Teresa Baker and Dr. Thomas Hale traveled from Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in Amarillo, Texas to Denver, Colorado to present their paper, “Transfer of Inhaled Cannabis Into Human Breast Milk.”  This is the expanded re-cap of the lecture they gave on the findings of their paper.

This is part of a series of posts commenting on a recent paper on cannabis and parenting. In these analyses, I offer my years of experience reading and writing scientific papers along with a perspective centered in mammalian physiology and harm reduction.  This often results in an view that is different from the headlines that report the publishing of these papers.

Drs. Teresa Baker and Thomas Hale collaborated with Elephant Circle to collect data on the transfer of D9-THC and its metabolites into human milk after smoking cannabis flower.  

Heather's thoughts: What can white women learn from Ina May about racism and birth outcomes, our relationship to our heroes, and actively disrupting white supremacy?

What happens when a birth educator queries families about their experience of listening to her presentations using gender inclusive language?  The results may surprise you!