To think WHO are trying to commit organisational suicide? They’ve said that women of childbearing age should not drink alcohol AT ALL.

[RickiTarr]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/16/accused-sexism-saying-women-childbearing-age-should-not-drink/

I was called a whole series of adjectives recently for stating on a thread that there is no actual evidence for harm from the occasional small drink in the later stages of pregnancy and that the social ban had more to do with controlling women than evidence based medicine. (When the change in recommendation was mad the CMO office near as damn it admitted this).

I'm sure the posters on that thread would love this report and happily wave it under women's noses.

Lets get those red robes out.

@Naunet

So they care so much about the potential life of a child, they want to restrict women’s freedoms and control them. But, they don’t care so much about that potential life, that they would also ban men from drinking, despite the impact on sperm. Gee, how unsurprising. Stupid misogynistic pricks.

They also generally stop caring about actual living children the moment they pop out.

@Thisisus909

Outrageous! Highly recommend the chapter in Motherhood a manifesto on this. Women need to be able to make choices about their own bodies based on science. It’s also really worrying that this kind of advice can lead to women terminating wanted pregnancies over misplaced fears that drinking before they knew they were pregnant will damage their baby. In reality, the science on light or even moderate drinking doesn’t justify such a drastic decision but women are panicked into thinking that any alcohol WILL damage their baby.

This is super true as well - it scaremongers and could have unintended consequences, when there is no good evidence that light or even moderate drinking is likely to cause damage.

Well as a pp suggested I now identify as a a man. Pronouns she/her.

I suspect it was meant to say "women who are trying to concieve" etc. and was poorly written/edited.

That said, after the COVID debacle, maybe the WHO needs to think a bit more carefully about improvin its messaging in general.

@felulageller

It's because the harm alcohol does in pregnancy (much worse than other drugs even heroin and cocaine for example) is done before a woman knows she is pregnant. It's those 2 weeks before a missed period or positive test when the damage is done.

There should be more publicity about this.

This is very inaccurate, an embryo is attached to a yolk sac and doesn't start receiving nutrients from the placenta(what the mother is eating and drinking) until between 8 and 12 weeks, with the average time being 10 weeks. Also I think even if this was true no one can force you not to drink on the off chance you become pregnant. I'm not a human incubator. I'm just a human, with as much right to drink and smoke if I want to, when/if I was to become pregnant I would still be in charge of my own body, but if I chose not to terminate then it would be down to me to make the choice not to drink which of course I would, but I don't need alcohol banning from me.

I suspect it was meant to say "women who are trying to concieve" etc. and was poorly written/edited.

They’re a big organisation with lots of resource. If they can’t publish what they actually mean then they need to take a good hard look at themselves as to why not. This is not excusable.

Identifying as a man sounds like the only way. For 10 years or so. Then I’ll switch back.

@Kokeshi123

I suspect it was meant to say "women who are trying to concieve" etc. and was poorly written/edited.

That said, after the COVID debacle, maybe the WHO needs to think a bit more carefully about improvin its messaging in general.

That’s not just poorly written though, it’s a completely different meaning. The only way I can see this being a mistake, rather than what they actually meant, is if the report was initially written in another language and there’s been a translation error.

It's those 2 weeks before a missed period or positive test when the damage is done.

I was told the exact opposite by my gynaecologist, exactly what pissface is saying above.

@Kokeshi123

I suspect it was meant to say "women who are trying to concieve" etc. and was poorly written/edited.

That said, after the COVID debacle, maybe the WHO needs to think a bit more carefully about improvin its messaging in general.

I’m sure they’ll be super quick to correct such a massive, offensive error then….any minute now…..

Does it have anything to do with alcohol increasing the risk of breast cancer?

In that case why wouldn't it apply to all women?
Alcohol increases the risk of male cancers too, so why not all humans?

@PattyPan

Does it have anything to do with alcohol increasing the risk of breast cancer?

According to cancer research alcohol increases the risk of 7 cancers, breast, bowel, mouth, liver, and three types of throat cancers. The increased risk of bowel cancer has been found to be stronger in men. So there is no reason at all to specify women if cancer risk is the concern.

Yes it is sexist because it only focuses on the risks (however small) of harming a foetus during pregnancy. They are ignoring all the risks of men drinking - erectile disfunction, sub-fertility (to name just the risks to reproduction), domestic violence fuelled by alcohol, drink-driving (obv not gendered), cancers, liver disease etc etc.

Under his eye

They employ highly educated graduates to work there. That is no drafting error.

“Pregnant people”.... there we go ........we knew it would - (a poster on a different thread said this terminology would never happen).

I’m so furious about this I could scream this morning.

Either we accept that misogyny and control is so ingrained than it would be acceptable to treat half the population as incubators to be infantilised and limited for more than half of their lives, or we accept that misogyny and control are so ingrained that even if the statement is an error dozens of people read it and thought it was reasonable enough not to flag in the editing process.

Fuck all of them.

And also fuck everyone who thinks this is actually about alcohol. It isn’t. If we allow this line of thought to extend, getting basic medical care as a ‘pre-pregnant person’ just got a whole lot more difficult. In fact, if you need more than a paracetamol you might as well go whistle. Apply same to employment rights, freedom of movement, bodily autonomy, all poof, gone.

Hamdmaids Tale series 4 starts on Sunday. Are we sure this isn’t a leak about the new series 😂😂😂

At one earlier brief point in my professional life I sat on a UN committee that was drafting a policy statement. I was amazed at how, at that point it was a small room of people making changes and many of them were ESL - I was the only native English speaker in the room, and the only one with any sense that some things sound/read different in different 'Englishs' eg American vs UK vs international school English. Trust me, errors can be made - its entirely possible there was a huge debate about 'pregnant people' vs 'pregnant women', then someone was asked to shorten a section, then the entire context that made it clear they were talking about women in countries that don't have early pregnancy testing or where women don't routinely use contraception and where there are high levels of FAS as a result was lost. Or that everyone in the room thought that was so obvious that it didn't need pointing out.

They talk about teens. They're clearly talking about all teens, and basically trying to encourage zero alcohol consumption among all people entering adulthood to reduce/eliminate harmful use. I see on here, constantly, the references to people who aren't using contraception but somehow don't think they're 'trying' because they aren't charting their ovulation. So would assume that's what 'child-bearing age' is capturing, an area of concern rather than a blanket ban.

If it was a standalone recommendation that all women of child-bearing age shouldn't drink any alcohol, it wouldn't be a sentence in a standalone report it would be its own recommendation and would go through a different process.

I'm not saying its not rubbish, but unless they come out and double down on this, I wouldn't be inferring that the WHO has had a policy change and wants to stop all women drinking alcohol. I would think that an organisation with a multi-lingual staff team and multiple rounds of editing didn't pick up on the nuance of one sentence in the context it was written in, probably because they were focused on other more 'contraversial' parts of it.

I wouldn't be inferring that the WHO has had a policy change and wants to stop all women drinking alcohol

We’re not inferring anything, we’re responding to the exact wording they have used. If it’s a mistake, then they can profusely apologise for letting such an offensive comment be printed. Its not our job to #BeKind to huge, misogynistic groups.

As it seem fallfallfall hasn't answered by question about which sex she thinks does the most stupid stuff , which sex destroy families and marriages and which sex has the most problematic drinking (which I think answers the first two),

It's men (male men I presume). I'm sure everyone is very shocked by this.

(Found that out from a paper research by none other than WHO...)

They’re talking about this on bbc TV now -
For 5 secs anyway!
Pretty much said it was sexist BS.

@Wanttocry yes that’s true but I was under the impression (which may be wrong) that the impact on breast cancer was stronger? Also breast cancer is much more common. I remember going to a breast cancer event and being horrified at the amount of free alcohol there, I think people just don’t really think about it.

@Feelinghothothottoday

They employ highly educated graduates to work there. That is no drafting error.

“Pregnant people”.... there we go ........we knew it would - (a poster on a different thread said this terminology would never happen).

Pregnant people, yet only women need to be banned from drinking. So can men get pregnant now in woke world, or not I wonder?!

@C8H10N4O2

I was called a whole series of adjectives recently for stating on a thread that there is no actual evidence for harm from the occasional small drink in the later stages of pregnancy and that the social ban had more to do with controlling women than evidence based medicine. (When the change in recommendation was mad the CMO office near as damn it admitted this).

I'm sure the posters on that thread would love this report and happily wave it under women's noses.

Lets get those red robes out.

Quite!

@RickiTarr

I bookmarked something about disaster patriarchy the other day. Maybe I should bump it up the priority list.

Disaster patriarchy? Intriguing. Not heard the term. But why did I instantly get what you meant?