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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Pregnancy and alcohol

48 replies

Whatwhatwhat · 08/01/2013 13:18

I'm just about pregnant and in the very early stages. It's number 2 all going well.

A colleague with two children tells me she had a half bottle of wine every evening through both her pregnancies. Children are now 11 and 9 and seemingly perfect. She loves wine and for her those two glasses were fine.

Isn't that too much?

OP posts:

Nancy66 · 08/01/2013 13:21

nobody will ever agree on how much is is too much.

Certainly I know lots of women who drank throughout their pregnancy and their kids were fine.

Equally we have friends who are currently fostering a little girl with fetal alcohol syndrome - but there's no way of knowing how much her mother drank. A lot, I guess. The poor little thing has many serious health problems directly due to her mother's drinking.

Alcohol does damage unborn babies. So does smoking.

I wouldn't drink 2 glasses of wine every night. I might have a couple a week.

39widow · 08/01/2013 13:25

agree no one will ever agree
i'm currently pregnant and i drink no alcohol, but thats my choice

happy2bhomely · 08/01/2013 13:27

It would be far too much for me! I'm 19 weeks pregnant with dc5 and on Christmas day and new years eve I had one glass of bucks fizz. I also had a swig of cider from dh's glass. I got evil looks from my sister!

Not sure what the current guidelines are, but half a bottle every evening sounds ridiculous whether someone is pregnant or not- but then I'm not a big drinker.

Original poster

Whatwhatwhat · 08/01/2013 13:30

In case I gave the wrong impression. That's what she always has. It's her wind down. It'd be mine too. Two glasses of wine. I think that's ok normally. It's the pregnancy that changes it.

OP posts:

squeakytoy · 08/01/2013 13:33

I would say a small amount of alcohol sipped over the course of the evening is absolutely fine. Mothers were once advised to drink stout or guiness in pregancy to raise their iron levels, and there was no epidemic of problems due to that.

LoveYouForeverMyBaby · 08/01/2013 13:34

in my completely personal opinion, i think 2 glasses every night is too much, having said that i choose to completely avoid all alcohol when pregnant and all "banned" foods. Not preaching to anyone, but if anything were to happen (miscarriage etc) i know I would forever blame myself even if there was no proof drinking had anything to dow ith it, i know i would feel it was my failt. so i like to follow everything to the book. i know that's very extreme though and know many people who have drunka nd ate banned cheese and pate etc and there babies were fine, i just dont want to risk it for myself.

expatinscotland · 08/01/2013 13:35

Yes, that's too much. I felt so sick I hardly drank anything - and I was pregnant when the guidelines were still at a couple of glasses a week. Half a bottle of wine/night is over the suggested guidelines even if you're not pregnant.

HopAndSkip · 08/01/2013 13:50

my midwife said "a glass every week or 2" is fine, so personally I wouldn't have gone above that. But the way i see it, if you can manage to, then avoid it, as it's not going to do any good even if it wont do any real damage

MiniEggsinJanuary · 08/01/2013 13:53

I didn't drink at all when I was expecting but know people who did. Two glasses every night sounds inadvisable IMO. DM however drank her 11 o'clock G&T every day and carried on with her three day eventing and we all turned out just fine! Who knows!

thekidsrule · 08/01/2013 14:05

i didnt drink at all in all my pregnancys

but i did smoke in one of them

i would no way encourage either

there was an article in the dreaded DM about women in Africa drinking alchol with battery acid in when pregnant as to get more welfare,shocking,slightly of topic

MummyWeatherwax · 08/01/2013 14:13

Half a bottle of wine is 4-5 units. So even at a conservative estimate, she's drinking double the recommended amount each week for a non pregnant woman . The recent Danish study showed IQ effects on babies whose mothers drank more than 8-9 units per week.

So I would say yes, too much.

I say that as someone who did have a drink, eat cheese etc while pregnant

GreenPetal94 · 08/01/2013 14:19

It's not advisable to drink two big glasses a night. But it you look into foetal alcohol symdrome it is commonly in mothers who are alcoholics, so are drinking many, many units a week.

Proudnscary · 08/01/2013 14:25

How stupid to push the limits.

You will always, always hear of people who drank and smoked all through their pregnancies and kids were fine.

You will not hear so much from the ones who had kids with FAS.

There was a much-derided poster on here who advocated drinking while pregnant saying it had done her dd no harm then casually dropped in the fact the dd had a facial abnormality because of it.

I am the world's biggest lush a great wine enthusiast. But I never drank more than one small pub measure of wine once or twice a week then drank like a bastard after giving birth.

TroublesomeEx · 08/01/2013 14:25

Yes agree, no one will ever agree.

I didn't drink anything when I was pregnant but I was very sick and couldn't really keep anything down. But I wouldn't have done anyway.

I didn't take any medication either.

Or eat any of the 'banned' foods.

My feeling is that you are pregnant for such a short time with a (presumably) much wanted baby that why would you do anything that could potentially harm them if you didn't absolutely have to?

I know other people who have taken a similar approach, as well as others who take the attitude that it's their body and their baby and they'll do what they like.

Who is to say who is right?

CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/01/2013 14:26

Half a bottle of wine a night is too much whether pregnant or not. I would be worried that someone who couldn't quit, even when pregnant, was too alcohol dependent. Very important to have two or three consecutive alcohol-free days per week. Liver damage is almost undetectable until it's too late.

oldraver · 08/01/2013 14:28

If she was drinking that amount every day of her pregnancy then I would say that was way too much (imo) and she's very lucky her chidren are 'fine

I'm sure Ive read that FSD can be a factor even in small amounts. Though whether the amount of alcohol drunk was underestimated in such cases I dont know

oldraver · 08/01/2013 14:31

Sorry FAS...

DragonMamma · 08/01/2013 14:34

I love my wine and didn't drink with DC1 (didn't feel like it) but I allowed myself half a bottle of wine at the weekend if I wanted it. Sometimes I had it, sometimes I didn't.

Half a bottle a night sounds like quite a lot whilst pregnant even to a complete lush like me

DeathMetalMum · 08/01/2013 14:36

Current guidelines is no alcohol at all. I am 30 weeks and have had 3 glasses of Champagne through pregnancy. I probably drank a similar amount through my first pregnancy, baring the drunk weekend before I knew I was pregnant I couldn't drink that much wether pregnant or not nowadays.

maddening · 08/01/2013 14:55

To me ( and I think by health guidelines) that is too much for a non pregnant person.

I did not have any alcohol when pg as I don't think it is worth he risk - plus was shown a video of a foetus after it's mother had drunk alcahol. The risk of FAS is too great - your friend is lucky it hasn't - as far as she is aware - harmed her children. Although she can't say that as she hasn't got a copy child where no alcohol was consumed in pg - perhaps they would have been more intelligent - maybe they'll have tendancies for particular illnesses - no one will ever know.

MrsTerrysChocolateOrange · 08/01/2013 15:04

Current guidelines are no alcohol at all. It does annoy me though because there is an element of 'tell the little women what to do'. The research seems to say that women who drink small amounts during pregnancy will actually have children with LESS issues that those who drink a lot or none. My theory is that it is probably a non-related correlation and I don't know if they factored in that people who drink nothing may not drink because of prior addiction or medical reasons, both of which could impact their children.

However, the fact remains that HCPs are telling us to drink nothing when the research doesn't bear that out. Why? Because we can't be trusted? Because they know best?

I don't drink 4 bottles of wine a week non-pregnant so that would be too much for me. However, I did have about three glasses of wine in my pregnancy, soft cheese from reputable sources and several other things that I decided the advice was flawed about.

Dahlen · 08/01/2013 15:10

There is no defined safe limit on alcohol during pregnancy. Which doesn't mean that any tiny amount of alcohol will cause damage, it just means that no one wants to say "if you drink x units a week or less your baby will be fine."

But two glasses of wine a night is too much for any woman, irrespective of her reproductive status.

I 'obeyed' all the rules while carrying my children. If I was pregnant again, I wouldn't necessarily as some take caution to hysterical limits, are totally unnecessary, and tend to treat women as incubators more than people. However, no way would I consider two glasses of wine a night acceptable.

Original poster

Whatwhatwhat · 08/01/2013 15:29

With my first I didn't actually know until about 7/8 weeks and had had serious amounts of alcohol. Maybe 3/4 drinks a night and some serious beers in between I.e. 6/7 drinks.
I nearly had a heart attack when I realised and then whenever u looked for people's advice they said - it doesn't matter when you don't know!!!
Couldn't understand that. How can it not matter just because I didn't know!?!?

OP posts:

Dahlen · 08/01/2013 15:34

My understanding is that it is sustained alcohol consumption that causes damage such as FAS or birth abnormalities, not a one-off binge (although that might lead to miscarriage in the early stages, or premature labour in the later stages).

However, why are you giving yourself a hard time over something you didn't know about at the time and so had no control over? Don't fall into the trap of mummy martyrdom. You might reduce the risks to your baby by following some sensible guidelines but they don't give out medals to the most self-sacrificing pregnant ladies, they just don't give you a hard time.

MrsTerryPratchett · 08/01/2013 15:35

It doesn't matter before implantation. That much is true (ish). You shouldn't worry once it's done either, what's the point? It might be a very good reason not to drink too much as a matter of course, in case of accidental pregnancy.

I work with a lot of people with babies and children with FASD. Most of whom were using heavily in pregnancy. Really, bottles a day. Telling them the guidelines won't make any difference. Real, accessible support for addictions will.

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