Wine every night

This is worrying for you, I used to be the same. I would recommend making yourself do some physical exercise before the wine - it gives you endorphins and you may feel less need of the wine. Think it needs to be more than walking unless you can walk really fast! I did it using the exercise bike and I’ve managed to get out of the 5pm wine habit even though I do the bike later nowadays. Good luck with cutting down x

Hi. Im currently in the same position. Been drinking at least 1 bottle a night for past 2 years and since my divorce. Making my anxiety and depression worse. I always use to drink 2 bottles of wine a week now its 1 bottle a night and struggling to stop. First thing I do after work is pour a glass then feel guilty next morning. I really feel for anyone as I know how hard it is to stop as my late Mum was an alcoholic

Same here @dottiedodah my cancer is hormone related (breast/ oestrogen driven). This is the highest rate of breast cancer in women and is not related to a family history of cancer (we have none in our family). The only way for me to help to prevent it coming back after surgery and chemotherapy is to have oestrogen blockers and to remove oestrogen boosters from my diet - such as alcohol.
Again, don’t want to worry people but it’s something we need to know.

If we compare it to the continent, a couple of glasses of wine in the evening is not something to be concerned about. As long as you can answer yourself honestly that if the need arose you could stop right now, then it isn't an issue.

I don't drink at all .save for a sherry at Christmas

Without alarming you,I feel you are o a slippery slope .my darling friend had a liking for red wine .sadly she died from bowel cancer lots of ancers are not her
Helped by alcohol .I am In remission and like the non alcohol beers, bottle green and sparkling water in a nice glass along with some xashew nuts.also like chamomile teas

Gosh yes. But I think it's really bad for me to drink every night so at the moment it's one night a week. I also give it up entirely for Lent.
So now I REALLY look forward to that one night!

OP, you ask @Shrinkingrose for evidence. I work in public health research, although not this specific area. I have done work on alcohol in pregnancy.

The difficulty with research in this area is that it would be completely unethical and logistically impossible to do a randomised controlled trial (i.e. assigning breastfeeding women randomly to either drink alcohol or abstain, and then do follow-up measures on their child months /years in the future and compare the two groups). So instead we rely on observational studies, which can be very useful at demonstrating associations but can't usually prove causality.

A useful saying in public health is 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' i.e. a lack of a study proving that an exposure (such as alcohol) causes harm does not mean that the exposure is safe.

Sorry for the midnight public health/epidemiology lesson 😅

Edited to add - there may be good research in this area, as I said it's not my subject area so I'm not able to comment on the quality of evidence available.

Can you quantify the actual risk to her child?

Does that make sense? I’m asking how wine can be so important you’d risk your child. You even call it a risk yourself.

I’m sorry op, maybe I wasn’t clear. I have linked to thr risks and can do so further. I asked can you evidence the benefits of breast feeding outweigh thr risks to your baby of drinking and breast feeding. Thay those risks are mitigated,

it is clear there is a risk of developmental delays, growth and weight issues, this is scientifically proven, that the alcohol your baby is getting is the same as in your blood stream.

why take a risk with your own child’s development like this?

Do you honestly think the NHS website would advocate for any alcohol in any environment for either sex of any age parent or non?

The myriad benefits of breastfeeding on the baby and its health vastly outweigh the small risks of drinking a glass or two of wine 5 days of the week

can you back this up, because the nhs strongly disagrees with you.

• lots of people also have an issue with BF and drinking. Again, I think I could do with cutting down for this reason, but having read the available research, I think that there are risks at every turn and the occasional drink will not harm my baby. I think BF is a major sacrifice to provide the best for my baby and gruelling enough physically and mentally, without making the experience an utter misery by forgoing one of my few pleasures

op, yes, but it isn’t an occasional drink, that’s the concern, if you were formula feeding it would be completely fine.

Oh honey ❤️

I’ve been having a glass or two of wine several evenings a week too, I am also on maternity leave. My twins were premature so I’ve been advised to semi shield them and not go to any baby groups until the weather gets a bit warmer and there is less risk of them catching flu or bugs. My boyfriend works long hours so it can get lonely, especially if it’s bad weather and I can’t pop out for a walk to break up the day. Love my babies and in a lot of ways chilling at home is nice but I do look forward to the days when I have a glass . Been trying to change it to something like a hot chocolate some days

It's so all consuming isn't it? I used to read multiple books a week pre kids, and after dc1, I didn't read a full book again for about 5 years. It's so so hard (yet wonderful at the same time).

You'll get there. You will find other sources of joy x

Agree re your dependence - you said you coped fine with not drinking in pregnancy but then say you just went to bed early! To see life as a waste of time without booze in it is problematic.
And all the breastfeeding mothers I know - lots - have limited regular alcohol consumption. You would be an outlier in my breastfeeding circles.

Oh, also, something I do - sparkling water in a wine glass now while cooking. I was the same - drank while cooking (it's a fucking joy tbh) so I had to swap. Bubbles and a beautiful glass felt like I still could enjoy it.