Interesting and disturbing article about foetal alcohol syndrome.

[Callisto]

I found this article in the Sunday Torygraph yesterday, thought you'd all be interested: here.

there have been more recent suggestions that learning difficulties like dyslexia and dyspraxia can be connected to maternal alcohol consumption..if anyone can find any research on that I would be interested

Yes, SueW, you're right that is the way that comes across - 4 in a night (but she never had that much). Oh well, it's very unclear!

Hi Katy! I think it would be great if all wine had to say on the bottle how many alcohol units it contained- easy to work out how many units in half or quater bottle then!

I wonder what the effects of maternal guilt are on the unborn foetus!

Can anyone actually state a good reason to continue drinking alcohol whilst pregnant?
I'm not asking if people have or haven't indulged...just interested to know if anyone can think of a reason?

Can anyone think of a good reason to drink alcohol whether pg or not?

Because it tastes nice? Relaxes you? Same reasons you drink when pg I guess...

Hi glitterkitty! I think a lot of them have started to, not sure about wine, but alcopops and bottled lagers do, don't they?
I've just had a look at a bottle of wine, and it tells me there's 1.7 units per 125ml glass - well that's helpful, how many people are going to multiply that by 6 or measure out 125ml in a measuring jug!! As you say, it would be better if it just said how many in the bottle. Or had 'glass' marks down the side

No...they're not reasons to continue whilst pregnant..

anyone else?

You miss my point- is there ever a 'reason' to drink alcohol?

Yes, I like the taste. I like the 'unwinding' aspect of it. I like the fact that we have it (when not pg) with a more special meal, when we have something to celebrate or just fancy spoiling ourselves because it's Friday.
I used to have a glass of wine while ironing, but stopped while pregnant as it's bad for me (ironing, that is )

Yes, definitely, the reasons are the same whether pg or not. It's just the risks (or possible risks) that you have to weigh up.

Glitterkitty..i got your point about why you would drink whilst not pregnant..I'd like to know if anyone has a good reason, faced with all the confusing info on FAS, to drink whikst a baby is growing inside them.

Thats what I mean Katy! Ah, you put it much more clearly than me!

i had the odd glass whilst pregnant, but not in the first trimeseter with either baby

in the USA , you can be prosecuted for drinking whilst pregnant in some States......it is a slippery slope towards the rights of the unborn foetus superceding the rights if the mother

i do not advocate binge drinking or heavy drinking, IMO, the odd drink is not going to cause harm

but there might well be women who have a child with FAS or other issues, who only had the odd glass

like anything, where the boundaries are blurred, you have to weigh up the risks, and some women choose to abstain, some don;t

Can't really answer mumto3girls other than with a rather lame and whiny 'but I want to!'.
I'm currently studying so I looked up research via the university's databases (it has a medical school). There wasn't actually a huge amount of research but what there was was very clear about the difference between fetal alcohol syndrome, where there are physical problems caused by drinking, and other types of cognitive development problems. One piece of research I found was a long-term study which said that children of mothers who drink less than one glass of wine per day show absolutely no difference across a range of developmental cognitive tests when they're in their teens. More than that, ie a glass of wine or more per day (and no, they didn't specify size of glass) and there were statistically significant differences.
So it would seem that if you can't cope without a Friday night glass of pinot grigiot then it won't harm the baby - the advice of 'one or two units once or twice a week' is safe, according to that research.
Having said that I've gone tt for the first part anyway. That's not to say that I'm not gagging for a drink - all this lovely sunny weather I could murder a margharita or six...

Dont know about other people, but my reasons didnt change with pregnancy. I cant see many people actually taking up drinking on medical advice or something- which I guess is what you mean by a 'reason'?

Congratulations fingernails (that's on your pregnancy, not your research!)
So was this "less than one glass a day" an average? So 4 units per week would be fine?

I just think more people should be honest...you drink if you want to and you accept the risks. Everyone now knows there is a definite risk (just not exactly how large) to the baby if you drink. Why anyone would put their liking for one glass above a bay's health is beyond me, but each to their own...

I guess by reason I mean't 'justification'.

quite, mumto3girls

there is a risk with so many things, when pregnant, and i think as adults, we can make a choice.....i chose, based on what i knew, that an odd glass of wine was a risk i was prepared to take....

had i been drinking a bottle or more a day, then i would be ignoring the advice and known research at the time

Exactly, I think most people are sensible and do their best- my poison might be the odd glass of wine, but someone else might smoke, or eat junk, or do no exercise, stress out a lot, etc etc... theres so many ways in which you might cause harm you just have to do as much good as you can!

Can anyone say they did pg perfectly?

mumto3girls, I'm not sure if it's right to say that everyone knows the risk. I think everyone knows that there are risks (although they might not understand the details) of drinking heavily, but medical advice says 1-2 units, twice a week is fine. Not less risky, but 'fine'. It's only if you do more research (and read threads on MN ) that you find out that actually there's a bit more to it than that.

that was kind of my point, lulumama. the whole 'rights of the unborn child supercede the rights of its mother' thing is very, very scary indeed. quite frankly, it's up to me if i decide to have a drink, and it's up to me to weigh up the risks/advantages, which i'd rather do in a rational and logical manner without interference from politically motivated, badly-written newspaper articles.
'bad science' in the guardian this w'end was all about the people making intuitive (and inaccurate) judgements about disease causation. (i.e. they just knew that their dc had got x from being exposed to y). it all makes me wish that there was a compulsory rationalism/statistics/philosophy component in the citizenship curriculum or something, so that we are all equipped to make critical judgements about these things.

glitterkitty, some of us do all of them (apart from smoke)

"Can anyone actually state a good reason to continue drinking alcohol whilst pregnant? "

It tastes nice, being slightly drunk feels nice. Those 'reasons' such as they are don't go away because you have conceived. Are there sensible reasons? No of course not. Is there ever a sensible reason to overeat, to eat crappy sugary food, or too much saturated fat? No, but presumably many people find some sort of reason otherwise we wouldn't have so many overweight people.