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.

I got pregnant at the beginning of a long Christmas vacation. Smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and tried out different local wines every day for the first three weeks after conception. Then wen went skiing for a couple of days and I proceeded to speed my way down bumpy red slopes all day, while the smoking and drinking continued at night.

To my surprise, I found out I was pregnant at week 6. I didn't smoke a single cigarette nor had any alcohol from then on.

I was worried about any harm I may have done before I found out. Gyne said there was no harm at such early weeks from what mother eats or drinks.

The irony is that DD was born 4 kg 10 g. Don't know what that is in lbs, but she never wore newborn clothes, went straight to 3 months. Should have smoked maybe? [Bad, bad joke! Ducks the eggs and runs]

Just trying to say don't worry, you did your baby no harm.

I thought that it wasn't possible to prove a negative mumtothree - so it probably isn't possible to prove no harm from a moderate intake. You could look at the statistics I suppose but I don't know what those might be.

WIth regard to older generations of drinking in pregnancy, there probably wasn't much advice because women didn't generally drink as much. I don't remember there ever being wine in the house (apart from dad's undrinkable home made), spirits that didn't get touched from one christmas to the the next and my dad home-brew beer (Tom Caxtons - anyone remember that?). I can honestly say that I never remember my mum drinking. Now alcohol is everywhere and women do drink more - which I guess is why the guidelines are needed. Not a reason to demonise moderation though.

I asked my HV about all of this the other day and although she did admit that she was "no expert", she has seen lots of kids suffering from FAS and their mothers are without exception alcoholics and binge drinkers who didn't stop whilst pregnant. However she did qualify that it is one of those conditions that has varying degrees and that there has just not been enough research done to know the full extent.

But, she also mentioned that the press has gotten hold of it and there is a certain amount of scaremongering going on as a lot of the stuff quoted in articles is taken out of context of the source report and as such should be taken with a pinch of salt.

She also said that most chromosonal damage which causes distortion of facial features happens in the first trimester and that more subtle mental health effects can be done by binge drinking started after this time.

As the majority of women I know who have had babies have admitted to getting bladdered on more than one occasion before they knew they were pregnant, myself included, then surely there would be at least one of their kids affected...but none of them are.

I haven't read any of the posts since yesterday so don't know if I'm repeating stuff that has already been said and there are probably people out there who will disagree with what I've written...don't please..I'm only paraphrasing my HV.

I drank red wine all the way through my pregnancy. Not in large amounts, but fairly consistently. I'm not easily swayed by statistical medical evidence; never have been and never will be. There are a couple of Princess Tippy Toe posts on here ... and whilst no one could criticize their earnestness of delivery, my guess is that these posters don't drink much at any time and so are moralizing from a slightly different perspective.

Incidentally, my baby was very healthy and has remained so. No allergies, no illnesses, and he's never had Calpol in his life.

I'm not defending the odd glass of wine when pregnant, but nor am I denigrating it.

'As the majority of women I know who have had babies have admitted to getting bladdered on more than one occasion before they knew they were pregnant, myself included, then surely there would be at least one of their kids affected...but none of them are.'

Yes valid point but remember that many women know now at '4 weeks' which is really about 2 weeks post conception, and thus stop drinking at or around the time (sites seem to give varying estimates on this) the exposure to maternal blood begins, so the window of opportunity for damage is really very small- and a lot of pregnancies are lost at this stage and the mother never even knows about it. So it's not conclusive really, that it doesn't affect the developing cells. Nor that it does, obviously.

Personally I prefer to follow a policy of least risk when PG but each to their own.

Oh and fwiw I don't drink loads (a bottle a week?) but when I do, I do, iyswim. The day before I found out about ds3 (who is disabled but may well have been anyway, who knows?) I was rat arsed, totally drunk (unfortunately that takes 3 glasses .

Yes, very unlikely to cause any damage in the first 2-3 weeks after conception anyway as the blastocyst isn't attached to your blood supply. I did drink a bit. Children fine. FAS children are pretty obvious from their appearance and FAE children tend to be very small at birth and beyond, small heads, learning disabilities and behavioural problems, terrible at maths. Ds huge head, very robust, brilliant at maths.

I also enjoy a drink and I smoked until the day I found out I was pg with dd1 almost 16 years ago...

I wasn't putting that forward as a valid reason for continuing to drink through pregnancy....I was merely pointing out that if it is as prevalent as the media would have us believe, then we would all know of at least one child who was affected. I know lots of babies and children, including one born to an alcoholic mother who although cut back on her drinking, certainly didn't stop, and don't know any FAS babies.

The media grasp onto extremes and thrust issues into the public domain in a very biased and ill-informed way. Until further research has been done, women should be able to (if they so choose) carry on drinking within the recommended limit of 1 or 2 units once or twice a week without being made to feel like they are arch criminals who should be locked away for child abuse.

that's all I want to say on the issue really

Plenty of babies are born to alcoholics who don't have FAS. Some researchers think there must be other contributory factors, such as vitamin deficiency or genetic susceptibility.

I think the vitamin deficiency may lay more at the heart of the matter. And as with many modern syndromes, they have probably been present for generations. For instance, CJD was always believed to be a modern disease but there is much evidence of it going back centuries (one case was even documented on film in the Edwardian era). It just wasn't known by that name.

Yes, plenty of FAS down gin alley in the 18th Century.

Somewhere along the lines, 'choice' seems to imply an overly simplistic decision:you either do or you don't choose to do something.

Choice and risk are relative terms. Fine, in an ideal world, we would all be educated about pre-natal, ante-natal and post-natal nutrition before TTC. Smoking carries risk. Drinking carries risk. Caffiene carries risk. Cat litter carries risk. Eating badly carries risk. Excessive weight-gain carries risk. Eating bananas/peanuts carries risk. No folic acid carries risk. No fish oil carries risk. Too many carrots carries risk! Antibiotics carry risk, hey for some, sex carries risk. Labour carries risk. Not sleeping enough carries risk. Life carries risk. You could follow a totally risk-averse pg, have a perfect labour and STILL be unlucky to have a child with problems. Doing any of those things may or may not have any effect on the child.

We none of us are perfect. Why do people drink alcohol whilst pg? Alcoholics need rather than choose to drink. If not alcoholic, why drink during pg? Because people may intellectually know what is good for them but for reasons of lifestyle/stress/lack of willpower/taste/rational risk/whatever behave differently. If it were any other, no one would smoke, do drugs, be overweight, speed in cars, lose our temper, get stressed, be in debt blah blah blah.

I find it worrying we are castigating ourselves when we are the least risk group. To express an opinion means by definition you must have some interest in the subject!!!! Sweeping generalisation, here, but I'd assume the highest risk groups, those who do not know about FAS, are unlikely to be either reading the Torygraph article or posting on a MN thread.

There is a real danger here that the only potential outcomes are to unnecessarily frighten women or worse scare off those who may genuinely need help to stop/moderate their drinking.

Personally, I was totally irritated by the chain-smoking dimwit I saw giving her child (18 months at most) their own Big Mac and fries. Personally, I felt pretty violent towards the woman with the midwife appt before me who smoked outside the surgery before and after every appt. Personally I chose to cut out or minimise drinking alcohol whilst pg or bf but it was bloody hard.

Rationally, I totally disagree with any move to criminalise women's behaviour in pregnancy. That is a very slippery, dangerous and Orwellian slope. I might find such behaviour personally repugnant, but I would far rather women were informed, supported and encouraged to take help than alienated through finger-pointing. There but for the grace...

I may disagree with the choices some women make but I defend their right to make them.

marvellous post.

eh? who was talking about criminalising women who drink? I thought we were talking about clearer information getting out to the right people....

Also aplausing stripey and would like to add: 20/30 years ago, loads of people smoked and yet had healthy babies. Even non-snokers would have been exposed to a lot of second hand smoke while pregnant. Ditto drinking: pregnant women used to be advised to have a pint of guinness a day (for the iron).

And, an anecdote, which is of course about as unreliable as a tabloid report: when I was pregnant (but didn't know) with DS I got so trashed on gin and red wine that I fell over the edge of a friend's patio and bruised myself from armpit to navel. And then got up the next day and carried on drinking.
DS is now 2.6, has a normal head and seems, if anything, to be smarter than average. It seems to me that if a pregnant woman drinks a lot ie a bottle of vodka a day or something, she has a higher chance of having a baby with problems - but it's not a 100% guarantee.

And I also agree that official monitoring or state sanctions on the behaviour of pregnant women is a bad idea and could lead to worrying precedents being set.

Even though
a) it's not the main point of the thread
b) I don't smoke

I'd like to wade in with my two pence in "sympathy" for smoking mothers. I know there are mothers out there who genuinely don't give a monkeys about the life that is growing within them but surely they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Most mothers want to do their best for their children but smoking is an addiction and I have to say I pity the women who cannot stop smoking even though they are pregnant.
Maybe I'm a softie but if smoking is so easy to stop then why do people (in every day life) struggle so much to kick the habit? I just don't think pregnant women who smoke deserve to be judged they need support to help them stop asap or at least cut down.

no one is talking to each other on this thread. People are making statements that are just a little bit self righteous on both sides of the argument. It really is going nowhere.

easywriter - I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day when I found out I was pregnant and quit on the spot. Yes, smoking is a habit but it is not like heroin addiction where you lose your mind if you don't get your cigarette and prostitute yourself if you don't have money to buy it.

It is not that hard to not smoke when pregnant. You just think of the little baby growing inside you, all innocent and pure, and you just can't give her all those toxins.

Besides, with that sensitivity to odors not to mention morning sickness in the first couple of months, it is incredibly easy to not smoke when pregnant.

It is going nowhere because each of us believe we are right, and it's virtually impossible to get such opposing views to see a compromise.
Because I'm on the no drinking side - not one glass, therfore there is no compromise available.

thanks Fio.