So
this is interesting:
Rieckmann, Bergmann, & Rasplica wrote: In 2010, the Brazilian Government agency responsible for drug-related issues formulated official Resolutions that categorized the consumption of ayahuasca by pregnant women and children in the Santo Daime and União do Vegetal ayahuasca-based religions as an "exercise of parental rights." Although ayahuasca groups do enjoy a relative degree of social legitimacy and formal legal recognition in Brazil, the participation of pregnant women and children nevertheless continues to provoke heated discussion. This article raises the main issues involved in the public debate over this subject. In the first part, a diverse group of biomedical and health specialists was consulted, and their opinions were briefly analyzed. In the second, a full interview with a follower of one branch of Santo Daime, mother of four children who took ayahuasca during all her pregnancies, and whose children all drink ayahuasca, is presented. Her interview reveals important cultural parameters of ayahuasca consumption. The article explores common themes and contradictions found between the biomedical, anthropological, and ayahuasca-users' discourses. It raises central issues regarding the limits of freedom of religion and the state's right to interfere in family matters. The following analysis also has implications regarding the role of science in influencing policy decisions on drug use.
I've attached the full text, but from the abstract, it looks like Ayahuasca use during pregnancy is happening with enough regularity that people are talking about it.
Before people jump on this though, we should note that this is happening in the context of a very old, and organized cultural tradition, and is decidedly different from someone deciding that they're pregnant, but want to vape freebase.
I also found
another paper that looked at the effects of prenatal, and perinatal exposure to Ayahuasca in rats. Rat models of complex human behavior are hard for me to take seriously, but it's in keeping with what we've been talking about. The full text should be in there for all who want it.
Oliveira et al wrote:Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage prepared by the decoction of plants native to the Amazon Basin region. The beverage has been used throughout the world by members of some syncretic religious movements. Despite the recent legalization of ayahuasca in Brazil for religious purposes, there is little pre-clinical and clinical information attesting to its safety, particularly in relation to the use during pregnancy. The aim of the current work was to determine the effects of perinatal exposure to ayahuasca (from the 6th day of pregnancy to the 10th day of lactation) on physical, reflexology and neurobehavioral parameters of the Wistar rat offspring. The offspring showed no statistically significant changes in the physical and reflexology parameters evaluated. However, in adult rats, perinatally exposed to ayahuasca, an increase in frequency of entries in open arms in elevated plus-maze test, a decrease in total time of interaction in social interaction test, a decrease in time of latency for the animal to start swimming and a decrease of the minimum convulsant dose induced by pentylenetetrazol were observed. In conclusion, our results showed that the use of ayahuasca by mothers during pregnancy and lactation reduced the general anxiety and social motivation of the rat offspring. Besides, it promoted a higher sensitivity for initiation and spread of seizure activity.
Emphasis mine. I don't want to be too bold in drawing conclusions (I don't know if the doses used were normal - I haven't read the paper in full, just the abstract), but this suggests that there might be negative consequences to Aya exposure during pregnancy (although decreased anxiety could be seen as a plus).
Blessing
~ND
"There are many paths up the same mountain."