Unless you are one of those rare women who unwittingly go into labour thinking they’ve a touch of indigestion, most women know pretty early on in pregnancy that their body is no longer their own.
I knew the aliens had landed well before the second line on the test went pink; my boobs were so sore that by early January I knew that Christmas day shag, pickled in Prosecco and sherry, had indeed made a baby. But this was my second child. I knew the signs by then.
With my first it was different. I was busy juggling London life, study, and a wonderful relationship with a solvent man; careless enough to forget my pill, though, while working like a demon in the month up to my journalism finals.
It’s a tale as old as time, and as common as a cold. And even though a tiny part of me knew I could be pregnant, like many students I’d been drinking like a fish. There was that night I went to a gig with my sister, and ended up in a gay bar in Soho; the surprise party for Tom where we got everyone pole-dancing before the night was done. The night we stayed up 'til dawn doing Christ knows what with Tom's banking colleagues. And even though I racked my brain going back over the dates to pinpoint exactly when it might have been that I conceived, it does little to alleviate my guilt.
I was upfront with the doctor who confirmed my pregnancy. He tried to alleviate my fears, telling me his own his wife didn't realise she was pregnant 'til five months gone. Other mums agreed: "Don’t worry. We all did it"; "They’re not hooked up to your blood supply in the first month - they're in a separate bag."
Jonah may have been born a good weight, with no delay in his speech or language or other signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome - but my son has Asperger’s syndrome, for which doctors can’t agree on one single cause. There’s no known link between AS and alcohol; but, as I search my beautiful son for the tell-tale inverted crescents at the corner of his eyes – visible markers of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome – I can convince myself they are there. Regardless of the fact I can see the same inverted crescents on the eyes of my cousin's little boy; on a photograph of my great-great grandfather, who has the same stern gaze as Jonah.
One of problems is women today drink more than previous generations. I don’t know how many of our parents were out drinking Jagermeister on a Tuesday night - although many more may have casually smoked 20 Silk Cut a day. The damage we can do unwittingly is frightening – and no one seems prepared to give an accurate assessment of the risk moderate alcohol consumption in pregnancy may cause. Since I had my children, I’ve read newspaper headlines suggesting anything from one unit a day to no alcohol at all can be considered safe. Some even maintain alcohol in moderation could be beneficial. No one really knows - and the fact is, as my midwives said to me, most babies are conceived in a sea of alcohol. They wouldn’t get made otherwise.
A recent article by Emma Barnett in the Telegraph, on her increasing willingness to judge women who drink while pregnant, raises an issue which seems to be increasingly in the ether. Are the rights of the unborn child to a healthy start more important than the mother-to-be's right to drink? She cites the case of a barman who refused to serve alcohol to a pregnant woman, and believes people should feel more comfortable exercising their concern for the unborn child in this way. But is she, a woman yet to have children, right to judge women who drink in pregnancy at all?
Conversely, should the law go further to protect babies from their mother's choices? A test case which will shortly go before the Court of Appeal is attempting to extract damages from the mother of a child who suffers from Fetal Alchohol Syndrome - on the ground that the child has been the victim of a crime.
According to current figures there are approximately 7,000 cases of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome a year. And given modern drinking habits, that number may be rising. So is it time to replace guidelines for women consuming alcohol in pregnancy – currently no more than one or two units a week – with laws? Or would legislating against alcohol consumption in pregnancy create more problems than it would solve?
The moment a woman's right to choose how to conduct themselves while pregnant becomes controlled by law, we have begun to lose ownership of our bodies – and that has to be a dangerous thing. It has all sorts of implications for a woman's right to choose - the recent case of the Italian woman with mental health issues, whose baby was forcibly removed by caesarean, springs to mind.
Alongside the difficulties of policing alcohol consumption in pregnancy (would we legislate against women who have two drinks a week instead of one? Imprison those whose babies are born with foetal alcohol syndrome? What about those who don’t know they are pregnant, or aren’t showing yet - where do we draw the line?) we have to ask ourselves how punitive measures against the mothers whose choices (itself a spurious concept, in my book) damage their unborn child is going to be a positive step for anyone involved. Surely, if society is judged against how we treat our most vulnerable, the only way to make the best of a bad fist is a to be supportive of both mother and child?
And, if we start saying only fit, healthy, sober women are allowed to have babies, then where does it end? Should only solvent women be allowed to have children? Or only clever women? Middle-class women? Attractive women?
There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Until you have children of your own it’s very easy to have (literally) pre-conceived notions of how you will be as a mother, like Emma Barnett in the Telegraph. You imagine cultivating a stress-free pregnancy full of yoga classes and organic veggies - but until you have been there and lived it, you’re in La La land.
I don’t know many mums who don’t do the best they can for their kids– as yet unborn or already screaming to high heaven – but that 'best' will be different depending on their circumstances, outlook and priorities. And there’s no changing that without increasing social equality. What’s more, I don’t know where official class lines are drawn when it comes to social drinking - but wine o’clock is, in my experience, a yummy mummy stalwart.
And, even after all that guilt, when my second pregnancy was over, I heaved a sigh of relief and treated myself to a glass or two of Cloudy Bay, baby clamped to my nipple and resolutely ignore anyone who dared give me the mildest look of reproach. Why? Because, when you’ve been up three times a night for the best part of three years, you begin to realise that it isn’t what’s best for baby that’s best for anyone. It’s what’s best for you. And if that means relaxing with a small glass of wine, whatever stage of motherhood you may be at, then so be it.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Guest posts
Guest post: If drinking in pregnancy becomes a crime, women's bodies will no longer be their own
71 replies
MumsnetGuestPosts · 24/02/2014 13:02
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.