Fewer Pregnant U.S. Women Smoke or Drink, But More Are Using Pot

Source: HealthDay.com Over the past two decades, the percentage of U.S. women who say they’ve smoked or drank during a pregnancy has fallen, but the percentage who say they’ve used marijuana has nearly doubled, a new report finds. Between 2002 and 2016, the percentage of pregnant women ages 18 to 44 who said they used pot rose from 2.85 percent to nearly 5 percent, according to data from the U.S. National Survey of Drug Use and Health. At the same time, the survey of nearly 13,000 pregnant women from across the United States found that many fewer were smoking cigarettes in 2016 (10.3 percent) than in 2002 (17.5 percent). There was also a slight decline in the percentage of women who drank alcohol during a pregnancy — about 8.4 percent in 2016, down from 9.6 percent in 2002, the researchers