HollyGoLoudly, there is, as Saoirse reminds us all, no safe level of alcohol for anyone.
The advice to abstain from alcohol while pregnant is not just advice for 'other people', the ones who are too thick to understand what moderation is, or the ones who have problems.
The placenta operates in exactly the same way for everyone.
The judgement surrounding alcohol on this thread has been beyond patronising at times, and nonsensical at others.
The denial is what jumps off the screen at me. Weird.
Here is a discussion of Australian advice to abstain completely:
www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2014/04/22/3986116.htm
A threshold effect
Despite the lack of clear evidence of harm from low-level drinking, O'Leary nonetheless believes the current guidelines are right in recommending pregnant women stay away from the bottle completely.
This is because it has been shown that a relatively small increase in the amount of alcohol a woman drinks can have a significant effect on her unborn baby.
"There isn't strong evidence one glass of alcohol is going to cause harm but there is good evidence that three to four standard drinks – that's just [about] two [average] glasses of wine – [no more than] once or twice a week might," O'Leary says.
This "moderate" level drinking increases the risk of the child developing behavioural problems including aggression, depression and anxiety between the ages of two and 15, she says, adding there's also good evidence for an increased risk of preterm birth.
With "such a small margin" before there is increased risk to the fetus, it would be "morally and ethically unacceptable" for guidelines to condone any drinking during pregnancy, she says.
Scientists may never be able to conclusively prove that low level drinking in pregnancy is safe. And even if they could, "the best advice is not to drink at all because it's too easy to drink more than you think" and slip into the range that does increase the risk of harm.
Drinks such as wine often contain a higher percentage of alcohol than women realise, making it easy to overdo things. "And people top up your glass without you noticing. There's all those sorts of factors involved.
"What you want to be doing during pregnancy is reducing the number of risks to your baby's development. The guidelines are there to set the standard for the best care. I think women should follow them."...
..."The difficulties people in our society face in not drinking are tough – even when they're pregnant," says Michael Thorn, chief executive for the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE). "Research suggests people are even reluctant to say 'I'm not going to have a drink because I'm pregnant'."
O'Leary likens the situation to the early days when tobacco's ill-health effects first came to light.
"Smoking was very prevalent in the community, including among health professionals," she says. "There was a lot of denial and it's taken a long time for people to support restrictions on smoking in our society. I think the same idea is there for alcohol as well.
"The ultimate goal is to redefine 'normal' alcohol drinking patterns so that harmful drinking and drinking during pregnancy become socially unacceptable."