controlling women during pregnancy

Like it or not, unless it has been proven that an action will have no effect on your unborn bay, it is a selfish act and putting your wants, not needs, no-one needs to drink, first. Putting your wants before your babies needs, is selfish.

But i have never heared of a MW say this to a pregnant woman, they only give advice.

If it was a case of true patriarchy then the father of the unborn would have the right to have the woman imprisoned or section to protect his child, but we don't allow men that control. The maternity and child system never benefited WC men. Class came first not gender.

Grumpy - where do see that as being the WRONG decision? All the Govt advice is that it's probably not harmful after the first 3 months. No-one official is telling you have it's selfish, lacking in will power etc.

"Are they refused some drinks or food because others know best and have decided for them what is and isn't ok?"

You, when on Warfarin, are advised not to eat to many green vegatables like cabbages, you are told not to eat or drink grapefruit, just like you are advised during pregnancy as it could harm another human being.

The analogy has been made about men who drink heavily, if a man drinks heavily and does something that impacts on another person, he is chargable; drunk and disorderly, indecent behaviour etc. If a pregnant woman behaves in a way that makes her unborn child disabled, she is not accountable, so the analogy doesn't work.

Women are mearly being advised, like obese people are, by doctors, they are not in the UK being commanded to behave or abstain from anything.

Nobody is arguing with a person weighing up the pros and cons and making a decision, just as you describe STIDW. that's what I did - I decided to have a one or two units every few weeks after weighing up the pros and cons. this is the WRONG decision, apparently, selfish, lacking will power, etc.

or you could have wiki'd it "In the United States and Europe, the FAS prevalence rate is estimated to be between 0.2-1.5 in every 1000 live births."

so not 1 in 100. though quite a range there....

I don't think there is a blanket ban on drinking when pregnant. Different agencies advise different things. Of course there are other things which are risky too. I have a career but would not have chosen to take the risk of having children later on but then I've seen first hand the less than happy results when risks have been taken. If I remember correctly one child in every hundred is born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The financial costs to the NHS, social services etc of looking after these children is a consideration too.

I'm not risk adverse but I weigh up the pros and cons and forgoing the pleasure of drinking or smoking to give children the best start in life is a small sacrifice.

Is the public trusted to understand this? I don't think so - and if you have a look here the information advises caution whilst drinking too - "even small amounts of alcohol can affect your ability to drive so the only safe advice is to avoid any alcohol if you are driving" about a third of the way down the page.

TMDV the father in that case was also a student, and i'll hazard...also getting pretty wrecked at the time conception occurred.

brewers droop is not a reliable contraceptive.

an interesting parallel - drink driving sets a 'safe' limit on the amount of booze you can have in your blood. the public is trusted to understand this. they don't need to be told 'no booze at all' due to lack of understanding.

yet apparently the same isn't true about women in pregnancy...

I never felt infantilised during pregnancy. Interesting.

I HATE the way women are infantilised during pregnancy. We are not walking wombs. The attitude to drinking has altered substantially in the past decade, even though the evidence hasnt.

Of course alcoholics can have sex! If they couldnt they care system would be less under pressure than it is now.

Alchoholics can be permanently pissed without being falling over drunk.

We do not know the amount of damage done to the sperm of a man who is a problem drinker. FAS is a HUGE problem and we dont know how much of the damage done to the child is through the mother's drinking alone.

Why I wonder? Maybe because the vast majority of research has been done on the 'incubator' and not the inseminator.

Another example of letting the man get away with it whilst the woman takes the blame?

Perhaps.

it isn't purely the state...

on BBC breakfast (what piece of tabloid trash this show is!) a lady came on to talk about FAS and her child who had it....

the spin the beeb put on it was 'there is no safe limit'...(the childs birth mother was a student who gave him up after birth...i would think she had been drinking like a fish)

then i found people at work saying things like 'it's not worth the risk' (What risk??) ..even a friend of mine challenged me on my tiny glass of white (at a party) ...this kind of soft-touchy feely thing has nothing to do with science, or evidence...but everything to do with a wish to tell women in particular what to do.

i had an occasional glass of wine while pregnant with both of mine, although the guidance had changed in the 7 years in between. i do think some of it is not trusting women to be able to make an informed choice.

i experienced a registrar lying to me towards the end of my pregnancy when he wanted to induce at 3 days overdue because that was what suited the hospital and he was really aggressive about me refusing this. i do grudge being spoken to by a man younger than me like i am somehow incompetent and incapable of understanding risks. i almost felt smug when i saw him post-birth (following a very slow induction, failed forceps, emergency C/S, significant blood loss) and he had the grace to look shame-faced for his "this is a totally natural process" BS.

i do think that doctors are generally becoming more accepting of patients reading up for themselves on their condition, coming up with suggestions, etc but when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth we're supposed to just accept whatever they say. the reality is that i had a very rare complication with my first birth and a very rare complication with my second pregnancy - of course i ended up knowing more about it than most HCPs I saw, treat me like i'm an adult or GO AWAY!

You have to be given the facts to make up your mind and that is all the guidelines are.

Without the advice you cannot decide on acceptable risk, some doctors think that it is zero alcohol, other advice points out that alcopops, as opposed to white rum in fruit juice, is dangerous because of the mix of chemicals and alcohol, if your drink is alcopops and i know some women who drink nothing else, then it is probably better to go teetotal.

I find I'm having to search far and wide for non-patronising pregnancy information that doesn't imply that, as I'm pregnant, I must have had a lobotomy for lunch and can't handle scientific research or statistics. I tell myself that some standard texts - like the dire Emma's Diary - perhaps exist because there are women who need the information who have literacy difficulties etc, or aren't functioning in their first language - but I resent the disempowering combination of patronage and mistrust. I am a 39 year old professional with four degrees, and am more than capable of judging risks on matters such as alcohol for myself. I've had to train my GP into accepting that her advice is just that - advice. I will consider it, but I am the ultimate arbiter of my own decisions.

Hungrydragon, what a maddening experience. I am 17 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and am loving it, but there are also so many coercive and frankly ignorant external narratives to be resisted, and I know I will end up having to deal with more and more of them the more visibly pregnant I become. Fortunately, I have a good line in stone-walling expressions, a reputation as a ball-breaker, and no one who has spent ten seconds in my company would dream of patting my bump. At least, I don't think so...

maybe 'most' men who are drunk can't have sex - but 'most' women who re pg can make up their own minds re acceptable risk. same thing

Women are not accountable under the law, i see this daily.

Pregnant women are advised how to look after themselves and their unborn child, just like someone on warfarin is (i am using this example because i have been on it and had the leaflets given to me).

You cannot n the one hand say that 'the state' is trying to tell pregnant women what to do and that is wrong, then on the otherhand remove all responsibility for the whole pregnancy and birth process, it is either one or the other.

Most men who are alcoholics or are drunk find it difficult to have sex.

If a man is acting in a way that affects anyone else whilst drunk, they can be arressted and charged, so unlike a pregnant woman is made responsible for their actions under the law.

I had a bloke come up to me outside work and berate me for smoking whilst pg. I wasn't but even if I had been, why was it ANY of his business. I bet he would never have dreamed of approaching a complete (male) stranger and telling him that he shouldn't smoke because it was bad for him....

Men who drink heavily whilst having unprotected sex can most certainly have an affect on the child they go on to concieve.

I disagree -I think alcoholic men's alcohol intake affects the health of lots of people they are around. Although I haven't got statistics to prove I would imagine the likelihood of them having unprotected sex would be greater - thereby risking the health of the woman by getting her pregnant (and STDs). Not mention abusive alcoholic men - both abusive to their partners and children.

It reminds me of all the advice they give to men who live with pregnant women about not smoking around them. And those signs you see where people congregate to smoke and everyone else has to walk though saying 'extinguish all cigarettes when a pregnant woman needs to walk through'. Oh wait, that doesn't happen.

And of course they apply this level of concern for women to all aspects of her pregnancy, that's why they give paid leave to all pregnant women in the first trimester. And have those free canteens for pregnant women who live below the poverty line where they can get free nutritious meals to make sure they get all the nutrients they need. And make sure all pregnant women living in poor housing are moved into hotels. Oh hang on...