Glass of wine on Chrismas day.

[LucyB1]

Hi, I'm going to be 12+5 on Christmas day and i am absolutely GAGGING for a glass of red. Is that really bad cause I'm not quite out of the first trimester??

Tondo - yes I apologised for wrong link up-thread. I agree the abstract doesn't mention amounts but (at the risk of repeating myself)
If you look at the advice to midwives on this website here It interviews Prof Hepper and he talks about amounts there. (I agree the overall site is not a good style of reporting but the video gives the interview and is freely available). I'm assuming the article in birthpsychology is reasonably accurate - especially given that interview with Prof Hepper on the midwife training film is consistent with it but we need a mnetter with access to scientific journals to look at the full report and confirm or not (?anyone)

"So basically - unless I'm reading it wrong (possibly), we're still waiting for evidence supporting the claim that very small amounts of alcohol (less than 2 units per week) consumed in the second and third trimester do any harm."
I think if someone can access the full paper and confirms that the summary and video are consistent with it, we do have some evidence.

Thought you might be interested to know that I've been classed as high risk today (by consultant, previously low risk according to midwife) on the basis of one glass of wine and having smoked weed in the past (well over a year before I got pregnant) . Overkill anyone?

Really rara or are you taking the piss? That seems a bit unbelievable based on those things alone?!

I can't belive that RaRa - your consultant must be barking mad. I had my first child at 42 - was overweight and regularly drank half a bottle of wine a night; I specifically asked if I need any 'special care' - or was I at any additional risk and was told absolutely not.

No, really - as ridiculous as it sounds. Was sent to see a consultant ostensibly to have bloods done to check I'm not drinking heavily or using drugs, but it turned into 1.5 hours of lectures from a Substance Misuse Midwife and a consultant, and culminated into my being booked in for two additional scans (which is nice I suppose, at least I get to see the baby a bit more) and labelled as high risk until the scan at 31 weeks hopefully proves the baby is growing normally. Until that point, I won't know if I can give birth where I want to as I have to be low risk for that. Everything else means that I am - no health problems etc.

WTF rara! A girl we know mutually was puffing away on 50grams of golden virginia every week whilst pregnant and said she wasn't high risk in her notes. Wondering if she was lying now if you have been put as that! What a load of rubbish!

Honestly Rara on the basis of that I would be asking for a new consultant.

It sounds to me that they are just wanting to get their quota up or something.

I'm 34 weeks and seriously considering a small glass on christmas day - as long as he doesn't want to make an early show!

jelly , re HG I noticed a couple of posters on this thread who I have seen on the HG thread, all of us defending the occasional drink

Just to reiterate: yes, personally in fact due to the HG all tastes are just .. wrong ... atm including that of alcohol, from the 3 sips I've had so far. So im not that tempted.

But I will defend to the death the point that there is a huge amount of hysteria over small amounts of alcohol compared to other dangers. I cant think that living on top of a main road out of london where you have to clean the windowledge twice a day from the car-dirt and particles could be any good at all for a baby. Or the risk of crossing the road or running up the stairs. Or ignoring the risk of other foods in preg!

I'm fairly convinced some people are out to make trouble for reasons of their own, simply to be patronising or gaining pre-eminance or having some moral high ground. Others have much more genuine motives, but seem to have a problem with sensible thinking like directly comparing a glass of wine when preg with giving a baby wine in the bottle.

Do find it convincing that different babies have different genetic susceptibility to alcohol since every genetic study going about anything at all seems to show we all react in slightly different ways. Not at all convinced by some of the 'research'.

A sense of proportion'd be a fine thing.

Yes Meerka and I wonder if sufferers of HG are particularly aware of the lack of proportion in people's thinking because it's similar to the issues of prescribing medications in pregnancy. There are plenty of women taking anti-sickness meds in pregnancy but there are doctors and midwives who remain rigidly opposed because of the issues to do with ethical trials. Seems similar to the blanket ban on alcohol - easier to tell women to just get on with it than to actually research, find evidence and reach a balanced conclusion.

No, I would have no problem giving up alcohol (and I am not in the mood for it this pregnancy anyway) IF there was a good reason. I object to the patronising attitude that women should just act as unthinking incubators and surrender any freedoms that might have an impact on the baby even if there is no reason to think any harm will come and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Disclaimer: my Dr was happy to prescribe meds but I got a lot better and didn't need them. Still angry to hear of the resistance other women face!

yup, when you've had to take a drug that they usually give for the side effects of chemotherapy - the odd glass of wine just does not seem that big a deal.

And YES about stupid, stupid doctors who don't even follow the NICE guidelines for extreme sickness but would rather you get so desperate you end up booking a termination even when you really really really want the baby and have been trying for years

sorry. Bad hormone night.

Disclaimer: managed to get the drugs just in time for myself before going too far. But other women, sadly, do not.

Then had a whole other problem with CVS infection but that's another story. Ahem, sorry, derailing thread. Just wanted to make it clear that we didnt actually go thru with the termination

Back on-topic. sorry.

"I'm fairly convinced some people are out to make trouble for reasons of their own, simply to be patronising or gaining pre-eminance or having some moral high ground."

Well honestly I'm not! I'm just really concerned because of some of the issues I've seen with children I teach and the science seems to hang together for me. I don't want any more children that absolutely necessary to have to deal with these issues. That's why I feel quite passionate about it.

I don't know how you can judge someones motives really. I could just as well say that some people feel guilty at the thought that smaller amounts of alcohol could be harmful because they have drunk/are drinking during pregnancy. Then they dismiss or deny anything that might indicate harmfulness of lower levels of alcohol so they don't have to feel guilty. I wouldn't say this though because I can't possibly know what is going on in anyone else's thoughts/feelings unless they tell me!

educatingarti you've looked into it and argue cogently and reasonably. I dont agree with all your quoted sites, but that's a different matter.

I wasnt talking about you. I do get very pissed off with people who say you can't have the tiniest amount without looking into it seriously, or who give false information because some people can't be sensible about the whole matter. There's some posts that are, Im afraid, plain stupid like the one likening one small glass of wine during preg to putting wine in the baby's bottle. etc.

I'm having a real bad mood night so I'll shut up now

But honestly arti so far you've shared no science that supports the hypothesis that very small amounts of alcohol cause harm. You've linked to a press release about one study (that is unavailable to review) and a video that does not work (on either my laptop or iPad).

Sorry if I've missed a salient point but how do those who teach or work with children with leading difficulties know how much, if indeed any, alcohol their mothers frank during pregnancy. I'm completely failing to see a causal link.

Frank = drank. That'll be that Guiness Mum had when pg

I'm a health specialist, I've read all the research, I'm pregnant and I have a glass of wine probably every week or so! I did last pregnancy too. As long as you're not silly, low levels of alcohol do no harm

A couple of centuries ago, all women would have drunk would've been "small beer" (weak beer) as it was known that river water was dangerous to health, even if the reasons why weren't understood. I wonder if all our ancestors had some version of FAS...clearly they didn't, so it must take more than a single glass of wine to cause it.

Ok,will start by saying I have read the first and last page of this thread so have missed all the hoo ha in between! I have personally 100% abstained from alcohol during pregnancy (currently 35+5) that has purely been because for me I've found it easier that way. That said hubby and I have a tradition of having a bottle glass of Buck's Fizz on Christmas morning and I fully intend to indulge in a small glass this year as well. Hubby will have no problems finishing the bottle!

I confess I haven't read the whole of this thread as it makes me too cross that people remain ignorant and uninformed, yet so judgemental, about this issue.

So…some proper evidence in no particular order

1. Alcohol (within normal drinking guidelines) does not cause harm during BREASTFEEDING (and to answer a previous poster, it IS better to breastfeed and consume low-moderate amounts of alcohol than it is to formula feed)

Ref: Alcohol and Breastfeeding. Haastrup MB, Pottegård A, Damkier P.
Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2013 Oct 7. (PMID: 24118767)

A choice quote: "The amount of alcohol presented to nursing infants through breastmilk is approximately 5-6% of the weight-adjusted maternal dose, and even in a theoretical case of binge drinking, the children would not be subjected to clinically relevant amounts of alcohol"

2. As has been stated, the research done on alcohol in pregnancy is always going to be dodgy as there could never be double blinded randomised controlled trials, so it is mostly observational studies, and open to multiple confounding factors. The main one being that educated, higher social class women are more likely to drink small amounts during pregnancy (interesting in itself).

3. The largest study I am aware of (>90,000 women) did show an increased risk of miscarriage / foetal death in those women who consumed more than 2 glasses of wine per week in the first trimester. It did not affect the risk of foetal death in later trimesters. 1 - 1.5 glasses of wine per week did NOT show any increased risk (there was a dose-response with increasing levels of alcohol).

Ref: Moderate alcohol intake during pregnancy and risk of fetal death.
Andersen AM, Andersen PK, Olsen J, Grønbæk M, Strandberg-Larsen K.
Int J Epidemiol. 2012 Apr;41(2):405-13. (PMID: 22253313)

However, all this can show is an association and NOT cause, as this interesting comment highlights:

Ref: Re: Moderate alcohol intake during pregnancy and risk of fetal death. Savitz DA. Int J Epidemiol. 2012 Dec;41(6):1847 (PMID: 23064503)

4. Although this is a bit old now, this systematic review of 46 different research articles did not show any evidence of risk associated with low to moderate drinking, and in fact highlights better foetal outcomes for those who drank small quantities of alcohol than abstainers (again, this is may be due to confounding factors - healthier women of higher social class would be more likely to be the light drinkers - rather than true causation. As it is a systematic review it looks at all the evidence, rather than one particular study, so is far more powerful.

Ref: Henderson J, Gray R, Brocklehurst P. Systematic review of the effects of low-moderate prenatal alcohol exposure on pregnancy outcome. BJOG: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology 2007;114(3):243-52.

It remains a controversial topic, and there are certainly some studies that do show increased risk of behavioural issues etc with moderate drinking (rather than light drinking), but the methodologies are often questionable and the outcomes not consistent. Unlike smoking, which is unequivocally harmful.

Importantly, proving 'no harm' at particular levels is how all drugs / chemicals in foodstuffs etc are licensed, so if you're taking the "I won't drink because high levels of alcohol cause harm, so low levels might too" philosophy I hope you are staying away from all medications, processed foods, traffic fumes, preservatives, oily fish etc as they are controlled in exactly this way. They just have less Daily Mail judgements attached.

(I liked the Scuba Diving / Swimming analogy BTW)

There is certainly no evidence to say that a glass of wine at Christmas could POSSIBLY do anyone any harm.

So Cheers! Enjoy your Christmas

There's definitely far too much emphasis placed on some risks in pregnancy than in others where perhaps it should be.

I have seen people who avoid runny eggs etc like the plague, and won't drink a sip of wine, yet will do invasive testing such as amnio/CVS "just in case" with a low risk result with a consultant whose track record with such things they've not even looked into. Despite the now available alternative of the as-close-to-diagnostic-as-you-can-get Harmony etc.

Obviously there are exceptions like with very high risk when the stress of not knowing is horrendous and/or financial/practical considerations and sometimes people don't trust a Harmony result for whatever reason despite the evidence - fair enough. However often people cite the main reason as a "need to know right now" (as opposed to waiting a week or so longer for Harmony results) with a low to moderate screening result and so they will run the very real danger of losing their baby for their impatience and nothing else. Yet they won't touch a small glass of wine or the lionmark-stamped eggs. I don't get it.

Is it perhaps because consultants are happy to offer amnios (private ones especially will get paid extra for them after all) and talk confidently about them and gloss over the risk as that undermines their skills, but will wag their fingers over wine.. and the natural instinct is to trust that "doctor knows best"?

I'd love if the NHS produced a nice chart with the REAL risks of everything that's a danger to a pregnancy on it, so we could all see clearly at a glance roughly where a given thing fell. Might help get some perspective.

PS - yes, I will have a small glass of fizz on Christmas Day. In fact I am off to have a unit or so of Guinness right now. After the way my two year old has been the last few days, it's good for me to unwind!