alcohol

[sunshineoutdoors]

What are people's opinions on having a small glass of wine once past the 12 week stage?
I have looked at advice on the nhs website which says to avoid alcohol - which I think is probably what I will do throughout my pregnancy. However...then it says if you do drink to have 1 or 2 units once or twice a week. Does this mean they are saying this amount is ok?
I want to do my best to have a healthy pregnancy, but also think if it's ok to have a very small amount of wine then it might be a nice treat. On the other hand I don't want to do anything that I feel might be harmful to the pregnancy. What have other people chosen to do in their pregnancies?

Official advice will always be to abstain completely.

Most people will tell you that 1-2 units a week are fine though.

I'm teetotal though... just depends what you're comfortable with.

There's certainly no evidence the odd drink is harmul though iirc.

Excessive, regular drinking risks a serious condition in the infant called foetal alcohol syndrome. It has not been possible to establish a threshold limit for this - it would be unethical to set up anything other than an observational study, and the data from observations is uncertain (not least as individual metabolism plays a role, and everyone misreports the amount they drink).

Light drinking is extremely unlikely to cause any problems whatsoever. But there are no official guidelines to define "light".

One or two units (small glass of wine or half pint of normal strength beer) up to twice a week has not been found to have negative effects on the baby.

I've had a small drink maybe once a week or once a fortnight and am not worried about it at all.

I read about a handy formula to work out how many units are in your drink - multiply the ABV (strength) by the volume of the drink in ml (I measure out my wine in a jug!) then divide by 1000.

E.g. 125ml of wine at 13.5% ABV = (125 x 13.5)/1000 = 1.65 units.

hmmmm,

I have been feeling so crappy and being sick for last few weeks (think I'm about 12-13 weeks, have got dating scan tomorrow). A little glass of red wine might be a nice treat for me....thanks for your messages it is good to hear from other people in same boat.

Still going to wait a while and check all is healthy at scan first

in my last pregnancy with DS, onced i was about 5 months i used to have the odd glass of Bucks Fizz from M&S (when i say odd glass i mean about 2 glasses a week- but not every week- maybe onced a fortnight), and even though it was only 4% i still felt a bit giddy after it, probably because i hadnt drank for the first 5 months at all though,

But that was it, didnt do me or baby any harm, my DS is nearly 3.

I am on my 2nd pregnancy and almost 18 weeks but havent felt like having a tipple at all, which i suppose is probably better.

I decided at 13 weeks that I would have a small glass of wine, however I found that after a couple of mouthfuls I decided that I just didn't enjoy it, so I took the decision to wait till after my pregnancy (I just couldn't see the point of drinking something that I didn't enjoy). To be honest, I didn't really drink a lot anyway, probably on average about 2-3 units a week (some weeks have nothing then some weeks share a bottle of wine with hubby).

xx

Thanks,

to be honest I was expecting some messages along the lines of how could you be so selfish to want to drink etc. It's really nice and refreshing to see people are giving rational, sensible and kind advice.

Have looked on some other sites where people can be quite nasty about messages like this.

It is good to get other people's views and not be judged for asking

I decided to abstain for first trimester, then that I didn't fancy alcohol at all until about 17 weeks from which point I've had a small (125ml) glass of wine once or twice a week. That's been no problem and I haven't felt I'm missing out...until the last few days when I've really fancied red wine all the time (I'm 36+4). Haven't cracked and broken my admittedly self imposed regime...yet!

I didn't feel like it in my first trimester, but now I'm in the second I do have a glass of wine from time to time when I feel like it. Only a small one though! Those large glasses of wine are loaded with alcohol.

I'm going by the 1-2 units once or twice a week rule. I can't remember where i saw that, but it sounds sensible to me. Most of my friends did the same, although clearly its a personal decision.

I had a lovely mulled wine the day of my 12 week scan.