To have one small glass of red wine at 38 weeks pregnant?

[baby2c]

I’m not a drinker at all but DH gets a bottle of red once or twice a month and tonight I really fancy just a very small glass, I’m a weirdo (according to DH) who likes ice in red wine on the rare occasion I have it. DH is only having one glass just in case I was to go into labour and he had to drive to hospital. So I was thinking of having a tiny amount with some ice and enjoying sipping it whilst watching tv in my pjs however I’m not sure if this is totally out of order or reasonable? Would you? Or did you? I haven’t touched alcohol at all since finding out I am pregnant at 4 weeks.

Of course. Baby is fully developed, it's fine.

You’re confusing drinking whilst pregnant and having a glass.

FASD is something which happens over the pregnancy. It doesn’t happen with one glass. Before you tell women what they can and can’t do have an idea.

I am a little surprised too to be honest but you never know what responses you're going to get online, right?

Your baby is practically cooked so go for it. There is a window in pregnancy when drinking alcohol can cause brain damage/FAS. I think it's specifically when the brain is developing earlier on in the pregnancy.

Go for it. Trust me, a glass of red wine does NOT go down as well when you're horrifically sleep deprived from a baby keeping you up all night and/or you are dreading the evening ahead.

Enjoy that glass of red. I don't think I've really truly enjoyed an alcoholic drink since I've had my son. He's 1 and only now sleeping through the night. Just.

Exactly. Happy to take the advice of experts.
Hilariously I cried because she wouldn’t give me a sweep when I was 38 weeks, so brought my fiance to my next appointment and that’s when she suggested the wine. I was due to be induced two days later and she was like, have a glass, at this point it will do baby no harm! I have a lovely healthy, if not energetic!! Five year old.

My midwife said it was perfectly OK to have a drink or two in later pregnancy. The baby is fully formed and can't be developmentally affected.

Although I don’t think this would do any harm, I do wonder why any midwife would advise this. I have 2 midwives in my family and they would never advise a woman to drink in pregnancy and my own midwives (NHS and private) only repeated the general NHS type advice which was it’s not advised. Women are free to choose but it’s odd that midwives are advising it.

^This - one small glass of wine late in your third trimester is vanishingly unlikely to do any harm.

I’m confused. Are you saying that I am lying?

I didn’t drink anything when pregnant, but then I hardly drink anyway. I don’t really see the point when you can just wait a couple of weeks

One glass won’t hurt

I came here to say this.

My DD was drugged up to her eyeballs on pethidine when she was delivered!

Enjoy your iced wine OP. But I would watch out, after 9 months without, it might relax you so much that you go into labour tonight!

Emily Oster has been quoted a few times but she's not a doctor, she's an economist.

This thread is infuriatingly depressing so I’m out.

Absolutely fine and responsible to have a glass of wine, if you choose to. I did a lot of research into it to make my own, informed decision. Just FYI it is quite recent that NHS says no alcohol, when I had my 8 year old a small amount was fine and when I had my 5 year old it wasn’t….

I absolutely would

You’ll be absolutely fine. You’re obviously not going to have much at all, I’m sure it won’t do you or the baby any harm.

It’s totally fine. The actual studies show that even a glass a day - crucially, when drunk slowly - doesn’t affect the foetus. Obviously that’s probably not a good idea for most women still! Why risk it. But the very occasional tiny drink… it’s fine. I did.

I read expecting better book,

I drank a small glass of wine here or there with all my three pregnancies (perhaps 5 in total each time). All babies done! I tended to have a small glass with a meal.

When I was pregnant the advice was 1-2 units, 1-2 times a week. I’m happy to be proved wrong but I thought they changed the rules not because there was evidence of harm from small amounts of alchohol. It’s that there are some women who consume problematic amounts of alchohol and it’s clearer messaging to say no booze.

The U.K. guidelines are very risk averse, I think excessively so but that’s possibly just parental guilt as I had the odd glass of wine throughout my pregnancies.

I was going to recommend Expecting Better too! For the actual science on all this stuff.

1 glass of wine is not going to cause FASD. People drink far more whilst the baby is developing and don’t know they are pregnant.
Personally heartburn stopped me even thinking about it. One small glass will be filtered out by your liver.

One glass at 38 weeks will not lead to FAS

I wouldn't .