Scalded for drinking alcohol by a stranger

[Boilin]

Went to Wetherspoons (I'm still there) with DP. I'm 28 weeks pregnant at the moment and had half a pint of cider with my meal. The woman who served it to me had no issue with it whatsoever, but the man stood next to me (not sure if he was slightly drunk) felt it appropriate to tell my DP that 'that won't be good for her or the baby' (hello I'm stood right here ). DP told him, 'it's fine' and told me to ignore him and the bloke then continued to discuss under his breath with his partner/friend my choice to have a drink.

AIBU to think he had no right? To think that it's fine that I had half a pint once in a blue moon? To feel pissed off with the constant judgement of my ever move since I've been pregnant?

Ugh. I've just had enough of today! Sorry for moaning...

Maybe we worked with the same person peng .

Regarding the evidence, the majority of papers out there focus on high levels of drinking but here's one from Midwifery:
www.midwiferyjournal.com/article/S0266-6138(14)00099-0/fulltext

And one from the Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, which is unfortunately behind a paywall:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14767058.2012.684107

NHS guidance from the Chief Medical Officer is that the safest option is not to drink at all:
www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/alcohol-medicines-drugs-pregnant/

I saw a couple of links in the discussion from orphaned NHS pages, the best way to check whether the advice is current is to scroll to the bottom and check that the review date is current (i.e. in the future).

SaoirseTheSeahorse

Was she a dysfunctional child-adult who couldn't get her backside into work on time to save her life?

Fish consumption is advised to be limited during pregnancy in very much the same way but you don’t see people snatching tuna sandwiches out of pregnant women’s hands or stroking their own superiority over a niscose salad..... mercury has pretty nasty side effects too but strangely that one doesn’t seem to be on the course content for the general publics university of life medical degrees.

Actually my nut job of a colleague took it upon herself to confiscate my multipack of skips while I was pregnant, due to the prawn cocktail flavour.
I didn’t have the words to do anything but thank her for her concern and switch to original pombear.
There are busybodies all around us

Nutkins24

It doesn’t affect the baby in terms of alcohol, but drinking when breastfeeding affects your let down and makes it harder for the baby to get what it needs. That’s reason enough for me. Additionally, not sure I would want to be caring for a tiny baby under the influence. I just feel like if I have abstained for 9 months why not a bit longer? I value my child more than I value some alcohol.

Thank you, WhatanAbsolutePenis 😀

What's particularly entertaining is that Skips don't have any seafood in them whatsoever, most prawn cocktail flavour crisps are flavoured artificially.

@Gronky ...waits for someone to tell you how terrible artificial flavouring is...

Gronky don’t get me started. She’s a very well meaning woman although a bit set in her ways, and she gave me a lovely present for the baby. Absolutely crackers at times though

@SavanahXx @Flatpackjackie
I can assure you people do not have a problem if they cannot abstain for 9 months. It's that they chose too. Alcoholism and alcohol dependency is where people crave alcohol constantly, have withdrawal symptoms if they don't have a drink and usually drink most days. When they don't it's usually down to money.
Also, believe it or not if a woman is a dependent drinker and pregnant, it can be extremely dangerous to just stop. They need to gradually reduce their drinking.
Alcohol is statistically more dangerous than heroin but that's due to more people drinking than abusing opiates. Therefore being a bigger drain on public services.
I can tell you now that checking infected groin injection sites and dressing leg abscesses is a lot more unpleasant than talking to Hilda for an hour who has a bottle of red per evening.
I have been to far more drug overdose deaths of my clients than I have ever been to my alcohol dependent clients.
Oh and 1-2 units per week will do bugger all damage

If the man politely said it then left it, then even though he overstepped the mark a bit (given that it's one small glass which contrary to some assertions on this thread, is fine) I wouldn't think too poorly of him.

So many people behave like shitheads now - a man who feels concern for the wellbeing of bumps and babies and is prepared to risk a little embarrassment may actually suggest a person with wholesome motivations.

If he wasn't pissed I might have said it's really nice to meet someone who cares these days but we're strictly following our doctor's advice, and in some cases it's alright, even beneficial (people have been "prescribed" things like a nice meal out for the good of their stress levels before!) so you can't assume it will go beyond a half. Since he was drunk I would choose do not engage as they can become nasty and you don't know what sort of person they are, but if you assume the best, it maybe even gives you a little hope for humanity.

www.nofas-uk.org/?p=94

@ImAIdoot trust me, he wasn't being polite!

@Ginsodden are you implying I should read this? Or that I should call the helpline number at the top?

I don't have enough medical knowledge to comment,I just wonder,although pp say the alcohol won't harm the baby,the baby will still have cider passed through to him or her?

@KarmaStar not quite as simple as that but yes... that is the exact thing that many people on this thread are upset about...

So many people behave like shitheads now - a man who feels concern for the wellbeing of bumps and babies and is prepared to risk a little embarrassment may actually suggest a person with wholesome motivations.

If he feels that concerned he should go and volunteer at a charity, or similar. He should leave strangers alone. I don't care how much he cares - it's nothing to do with him.

So many people behave like shitheads now - a man who feels concern for the wellbeing of bumps and babies and is prepared to risk a little embarrassment may actually suggest a person with wholesome motivations.

If that man had come up to the OP herself and said "Excuse me, I'm not sure if that's the best thing to be drinking in your condition" I would almost, ALMOST believe that it was coming from a place of concern. I'd still have told him to mind his own business, but I'd probably get that he was genuinely concerned.

The fact that he completely overlooked OP and said it to the man at the table smacks of control. And in my experience, those type of men are not risking a little embarrassment, because they believe they are, and will always be, superior to women (whether pregnant or not) and therefore do not get embarrassed.

Perhaps the scolding felt a bit intrusive but any alcohol when pregnant is less than ideal. Everyone must be aware of that.

RoseWhiteTips

Scolding? You scold children. Why does anybody think they have the right to "scold" other adults? How strange.

Lol boilin 😂. No judgement here, just wanted to add some facts re FASD to the thread. Most people only know about FAS. FAS is rare, whilst FASDs are the leading cause of intellectual disability in the UK. We are given very little or very confusing messages about this.
Btw, the man in the pub was a dick x

Lots of food flavourings and colourings use alcohol as a carrier, OP and it's sometimes used to extend shelf life in cakes etc. ( in minute quantities), so that's something else for people to fret over unnecessarily.
Not Skips though, that's spray dried flavour.
Mind you, I live in Somerset and the " cider effect" might explain a few folks around here....

One half pint of cider in 9 months is going to do no harm whatsoever. The hysteria around this issue these days is ridiculous. If you choose not to have a drop all pregnancy then fine but that doesn’t mean 1 unit of alcohol in pregnancy means the woman has a problem.

Even if you’d been downing whisky OP it wouldn’t have been his place to comment. Of course that it isn’t advisable at all but I really dislike that women’s bodies seem to become public property when they are pregnant. I suspect that any expressed “concern” about this is less about the unborn baby’s wellbeing and more about controlling women

My partner would have told him to mind his own business and I would have laughed.

How rude some people are. RoseWhiteTips you have very little manners or clsss if you think you have any right to ‘scold’ another adult.

Has the OP at any point said that this was the only alcohol she has drunk during pregnancy?