To think 2 glasses of wine per week won't do any harm?

[Poptart4]

I fully expect to be eaten alive for this post but here we go...

I'm 4 weeks pregnant with my 4th child. With my first 3 pregnancies I didn't touch a drop for 9 months and all dc were perfectly healthy. However I have watched people, friends/acquaintances, binge drink every weekend through out their pregnancies and their children were also perfectly healthy.

To be clear i would never binge drink while pregnant!

But I have been thinking that maybe 2 glasses of wine max on a Friday evening won't do any harm.

What do you think? Anyone else done the same? Did it harm your baby?

Loon has just expressed perfectly my thoughts on the matter.

I had the occasional glass of wine when I was pregnant with DD. I don't think I would have felt comfortable with drinking every week though and would probably limit it to one small glass.

I certainly wouldn't have 2 glasses, since this would probably equate to 3 units of alcohol or more.

Why take the chance? Sadly, a proportion of pregnancies end badly, and personally, were this to happen to me, I would want to be able to reassure myself that I hadn't taken any unnecessary risks. Some risks can't realistically be avoided, but alcohol can. It's only for 9 months!

OP. When I was pregnant with DC1 guidelines were for 12 units once or twice a week. By DC2 this had changed to zero units. However any level of reading research into this will show you that it was based on no new medical evidence. If I was pregnant again I would maybe have 12 units once or twice a week. To be honest I would stay away from wine as I think it's too strong and 1 unit of wine looks like nothing. Congratulations on your pregnancy BTW!

I work with families that have been affected by FAS.

I'm still happy to drink the odd glass of wine during pregnancy.

The families I come into contact with have without fail drunk significant amounts of alcohol, more than I would drink even when not pregnant.

The NHS guidelines are correct in that they cannot say there is any safe level of drinking. But people who have actually looked into the research rather than blindly adding alcohol into the ever growing list of Reasons to Judge Pregnant Women generally conclude that one or two glasses a week are unlikely to do much harm.

And as for the pp who said 'you wouldn't add a drop of alcohol into your babies feed' err well in the not too distant past that is precisely what many parents did for colicky or teething babies. Fortunately the human race appears to have survived this fairly well.

I didn't drink during pregnancy or breastfeeding as I didn't want to take any risks with my baby's physical or mental development. Research suggests alcohol is more damaging, believe it or not, than drugs so I personally felt it was really not worth it. Look up fetal alcohol syndrome and make your decision based on scientific evidence. Is there something else you could look forward to instead (chocolate?!)

Rumpled
How do you know that?? Whay would you take the risk?

I genuinely struggle to understand why a pregnant woman would not just abstain completely for a few months.

Monoblock
Exactly. It is just not worth it.

To the poster who said her family member (apparently) a doctor condones it .... not a very good doctor then. Not sure i believe it ...

As for the binge drinking in pregnancy... does ANYONE think that can be excused / justified? It's disgusting, reckless, selfish and a sign of things to come IMO. Not fit to parent any child.

That NHS advice is not based on the evidence. As ever, they assume that people can't/won't understand subtleties so give a very simple message.

The evidence shows that moderate drinking is not harmful to the foetus at later stages of pregnancy. As mentioned above, it seems the outcomes at a population level for moderate drinkers are better than abstainers.

Two small glasses (ie between third and half a bottle) a week is not going to cause a foetal alcohol syndrome.

Disclaimer, I barely had any alcohol in my pregnancies (maybe a couple of small glasses of champagne on special occasions), so I'm not justifying my own behaviour.

Yes they’ve survived but we don’t know what long term effects it has had on them. Where as now we know better and advise better.

Somebody please link me to this evidence of moderate amount of alcohol being allowed in pregnancy

Could you have 2 half glasses of white wine topped up with soda water? Then you would be having 2 drinks but only one glass of wine.

Thierry i abstained from alchol myself when pregnant as I couldn’t bare the anxiety over the what ifs (and I didn’t fancy it anyway) but even I can see that suggesting someone could cause FAS from 2 glasses of wine per week is ridiculous!

I did. After first trimester and most weeks it was one or no small glasses rather than 2 small glasses. But there were some weeks I had 2.

Those who wouldn't take the (very small) risk, did you also avoid all other avoidable risks such as:

• no car journeys that weren't absolutely necessary in case of road accidents
• no foot journeys requiring crossing the road except when absolutely necessary
• no preprepared food whatsoever (no ready meals, takeaways, deli food), including bagged salad and sandwiches, as they carry a higher risk of listeria
• no sleeping on back
• no sex in case of introducing bacteria
• no unnecessary contact with anyone who might be incubating slapped cheek or rubella or any other illness harmful to the foetus (eg no contact with children)

If you did any of these things then you took an unnecessary risk. Same as having a glass or two of wine.

Rumpledfaceskin I don’t know where you’re getting your evidence from but the truth is the that nobody knows how much alcohol it takes to cause FAS, only that the more you drink the higher the chances. Which doesn’t mean that only two glasses a won’t cause it either.

My son has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder which isn't half as rare as foetal alcohol syndrome. Often you wouldn't know your child has this because it can be attributed to sensory processing disorder, adhd, global developmental delay etc etc.
Therefore when i was pregnant i didn't touch a drop. Why would you run the risk? Why would you do anything that would potentially damage your child?

minipie your arguments are things which are often unavoidable risks in every day life. Alcohol is always an avoidable risk.

2 glasses of wine would absolutely NOT cause FAS, even 2 bottles a week would probably be 50:50!

monoblock the guidelines are based on no one being able to prove without a doubt that alcohol is safe at low levels. They are not based on any proof that alcohol is dangerous at low levels. And as i already said a lot of it had to do with the NHS researching and finding that women were lying about the amount they drank because as a 'small amount' was said to be okay by the NHS women could tell themselves they were only having a small amount when in fact they werent. So the NHS went with the least risky option which was to not support drinking alcohol in pregnancy at all. In this way they would not put women at risk of drinking too much.

That is a guideline though... its not actual information. Its not like the risks they can tell you about smoking.

No, I specifically talked about avoidable risks.

So, for example, a car journey to go to see a friend is an avoidable risk. You do it because you enjoy seeing the friend. Drinking wine is an avoidable risk. You do it because you enjoy wine. Same.

minipie I don’t know what planet you’re living on but a car journey is nowhere in the same region of drinking alcohol when pregnant.

I think 2 glasses a week is a lot! and im a big drinker generally - I drank a lot while breastfeeding for example...but re. during pregnancy why would you take the risk? through the placenta the baby gets a direct hit onto their unformed tiny kidneys of whatever toxin you take in

Im very much in favour of leaving women to make these decisions themselves but that seems a lot of alcohol - its only 9 months why can't you just wait ....

There’s no evidence it causes harm but there’s also no evidence it doesn’t.

There is some research that shows very subtle changes in the faces of babies who’s mums drank moderately in pregnancy.

I personally wouldn’t touch a drop while pregnant because if the worst happened I would always blame myself.

It’s only 9months ! At least it’s not over xmas!

Mono I don’t know where you’re getting your evidence because there is no evidence that small amounts of alchohol do any harm. As I’ve said, personally I would avoid as it’s only 9 months of your life.

FAS is, as far as I am aware, extremely rare. There may be babies who might have it but an actual formal diagnosis is unusual. I have come across children whose mothers drank in the 100s of units per week during pregnancy and even those children were not given a formal diagnosis.

I say this not to attempt to make anecdotes become data but just to give some balance to the suggestion that FAS is a risk of you drink at all during pregnancy. Yes, it might be. But you might also catch listeria from eating a salami sandwich.

During my first pregnancy I enjoyed a small (genuinely small - I used to ensure exactly 125ml) glass of wine per well from the third trimester. In my second I could take it or leave it but had maybe larger glasses but much less often. I was comfortable with that choice - in my first pregnancy I was within NHS recommended limits.

Personally my belief is that the recommendation is zero because testing would be unethical and women are not trusted to make proper judgements on their own.