The Stoner Mom

First of all, high! I’m so excited to share my thoughts, experiences, and opinions on cannabis, mushrooms, and other plant medicines with you. I can’t wait to watch this grow into a community and a safe space for the stay-at-home canna mama! Just a disclaimer, everything you will read here is based on my thoughts, opinions, experiences, and research. Take it with a grain of salt, make sure you do your research on anything you might be uncertain about, and most importantly, have fun! Expanding your mind should NOT be scary. Plants have always been here, we‘ve only been taught to be afraid of them.

Breaking Cannamom Stigmas 

We’ve all heard the judges of society crack down the hammer on moms who smoke the ganj. Many of their judgments, not only being misplaced, but based on wildly inaccurate information and assumptions about the individual mom and her usage. Not only are there several reasons why a woman would choose to continue using cannabis during pregnancy i.e. loss of appetite, inability to sleep, physical pain, nausea, and high-risk pregnancy due to stress to name a few. But the medications they prescribe to help with these symptoms often have extremely worse side effects than a little combustion. Many side effects are a risk during pregnancy. Medications prescribed for insomnia such as zaleplon, zolpidem, and eszopiclone have been known to cause some pretty scary sleep behaviors in some cases leading to death as well as milder side effects such as pain, dizziness, loss of coordination, etc. Other drugs to aid with nausea such as Xonvea may increase insomnia and somnolence, and there was a small increase in oral clefts when used in the first 12 weeks according to GOV.UK. The first 12 weeks for me personally were probably the most brutal, and I would have most definitely not opted for that one. There are MANY medications with MANY scary side effects and the fact is that cannabis just doesn’t have a big scary side effects list. 

THEN there’s the judgment of just being a mother who smokes. It doesn’t matter if you breastfeed your child or choose formula, but ooooh if you breastfeed they come for you. Again, many make assumptions they have no business making based on information that is, again, wildly inaccurate. My favorite stigma is that THC ends up in your breast milk. Here are some facts for you, less than 3% of the psychoactive component (THC) ends up in breast milk. Those fun prescriptions we were just talking about that they love to market as better for you? Yeah, those have a much higher percentage of ingredients that end up in that sweet liquid gold, and with those ingredients also come side effects. No thank you, Karen. I’ll stick to my Mary Jane thank you. That’s not to say you’re a terrible mother for using prescriptions, sometimes we do need them. All I’m saying is, we don’t judge moms for needing their medications during pregnancy while breastfeeding, or while living life as a mother. And we should carry the same energy when caring for mothers who choose to use plant medicine.

My Story 

I chose to continue using cannabis during my pregnancy, and I live in the state of California. I had been open with my healthcare provider, as I wanted to know what to be prepared for. I had extremely bad insomnia, I couldn’t eat anything, and even drinks would make me nauseous. When I say every single one of them told me I was doing what was right, I mean every single one of them. And they were extremely vague about what to expect on my due date. They had drug-tested me when I got in the hospital without any form of consent, I was completely unaware they had drug-tested me when they did it. Because my test came out positive for marijuana, the second my son was born they placed a urine collection bag on him, which never should have happened because I never should have been drug tested. The entire next 24 hours I tried like hell to get help with getting my son to latch. He was having a hard time getting his mouth open, I could tell his jaw was clenched and no one was listening to me. I was constantly assured that it was fine, to relax and that I was doing great. My chest felt like it was going to explode due to the amount of milk I was producing, I had only been eating my pregnancy weight in lactation cookies a month before my son was even born to make SURE it came in. I finally placed my trust in the care of the nurses because I had consulted with several of them. In the morning, the pediatrician came in scolding me about how lazy I am and that she would put my son in NICU because he had lost a significant amount of weight. He was born 7lbs 12oz and lost a significant amount of weight by the time she came in. I became extremely furious with her when she blamed me as if I didn’t hound her staff all night about a lactation consultant. Her tune changed when I started telling the case worker, who came in shortly after, about my entire experience. After that, boy did they roll in the breast pump and lactation consultant. This is a tactic I later learned they use to try to force the mother to use formula. I had to pump around the clock, give my husband the milk to bottle feed him and loosen his jaw, and then on the third day I was finally able to get a good strong latch. It wasn’t me who gave up, it wasn’t me being neglectful, and it most definitely wasn’t and never will be me who was unfit to caretake. It was the staff at that hospital. And sadly, my story isn’t unique and I didn’t know my rights. I hoped that I would give birth and be treated like anyone else who uses their medication while pregnant or breastfeeding. They took a very beautiful experience for me and made it one that was extremely painful, heart-wrenching, and caused me a lot of trauma. I logged every single feeding, every single diaper, wet or otherwise for over a year. I have notebooks full of our time breastfeeding together because I was SO afraid. While I know they’re sweet memories and I recognize I’m quite lucky to have notebooks like that, the reason I have them is bittersweet. My milk production was LOWEST in the hospital because of how tremendously stressed out I was. Even when the lactation consultant finally helped me get a good latch, we were constantly being poked and touched. I was being told everything I was doing was wrong, every position I had him in was wrong and needed to be adjusted when it seemed fine before they adjusted us. The second I got home and sat down with my son to nurse for the first time, it was a complete torrential downpour. I had to pump before we could nurse because he would choke, I filled both bottles and he never took another bottle again. He refused every single time and I still pumped a freezer full of milk to make sure I had a stash for him. The truth is, some of us who get judged the hardest, try the hardest. We go above and beyond, we make the purées and the fruit snacks ourselves because red dye freaks us out and we cry the first time we give them a pizza roll to make life a little easier on us. As long as we know we’re good moms, and I know we are, who gives a FUCK what the Karens of society have to say?