Light drinking during pregnancy is BETTER than no drinking, research suggests

[SeanKC]

Research by an academic at the University of Essex suggests that the children of mothers who drank lightly during pregnancy had the least difficulties. Surprising results! All the details are here:

www2.warwick.ac.uk/knowledge/health/drinkinginpregnancy

What do you think?

cheers!

I've been having my one or two units a week.
(i like shandy best, cos then it's got loads of liquid in it)

[teetotal]

Not entirely sure where I fit on her scale. Light drinking better than abstaining while pregnant or binge drinking but what of being teetotal? It's not explicitly stated.

I'd guess it's the same as why light drinkers in general have better health than teetotallers - teetotallers include those who have had to give up alcohol for medical or alcoholic reasons, so weren't in the best health to start with.

Also could be that nowadays the light drinkers include people who know enough about pregnancy guidelines to know there's zero evidence for limiting alcohol to nil, except that the govt thought it was 'confusing' to recommend a small amount. So the light drinkers might include better-educated and wealthier people who tend to be healthier.

My MW and GP last time told me to enjoy 'one small glass of wine' with dinner during pregnancy, and I did. :) This time I still feel sick at the thought, 26 weeks in!

It seems to be that out of the four factors, including the three 'other factors' below, aclohol consumption is actually the least influential factor.

"Mother and child factors: mother?s age at the time of birth, number of children in the household, whether the pregnancy was planned, whether the mother smoked during pregnancy, birth weight and current age.
Socioeconomic factors: highest parental occupation, highest parental educational qualification, and family income.
Family psychosocial markers: mother?s current mental health, parental discipline, child made to follow instructions, mother?s parenting competence, closeness of relationship between mother and child and whether or not the mother currently drank alcohol."

It even says that light drinkers are disproportionately wealthy. I don't think the findings can be accurately used to show the effects of drinking in pregnancy. And, I don't understand how not drinking in pregnancy can have a more detrimental effect? How? What causes it? Other than the fact that the children of light drinkers are more likely to be born into wealthier families?

Do light drinkers really have better health than teetotallers? I don't drink. I didn't give up for health reasons or because I joined AA anf have been known to binge drink during my teen years. I just dont enjoy drinking. I don't really like the taste of any alcoholic drink and I don't enjoy the lack of control that comes with being drunk.

Exactly Frilly, some huge assumptions being made in this 'research'.

Whenskiesaregrey is spot on. There is this ridiculous leap of faith between correlation and causation in so many academic studies. While I enjoy a glass or two of wine a week because I dont believe it does any harm I dont believe for a minute that it is better than not drinking anything at all. That said at least it is useful ammunition against the smug 'but you're only pregnant for 9 months cant you manage without' brigade.

I'd like to see how big the difference is between light drinkers and pregnancy abstainers/teetotallers once she corrects for all the socioeconomic factors she mentioned. Pretty much nothing in either direction I'd imagine. It's a bit stupid talking about it in the context of the health guidelines though, as there's no reason to change the health guidelines unless they can show that light drinking in pregnancy has a positive effect after you correct for socioeconomic influences. Drinking a glass of nice red every once in a while is not going to put 20 grand a year on my salary.