Soooo, wine...

[Loveallmyboys]

Wondering what your thoughts are on a glass of wine with dinner?
I'm 16+3 and a glass of plonk would go down pretty well right now...
I didn't drink at all with ds1, had a small one, once or twice while out for dinner with ds2 but feeling over cautious with this one for some reason.
What say you?

I think as women have begun to out perform men at school and uni and to enter the work place as standard the 'mummy guilt' is a ploy to make sure we still have obstacles to overcome.

I live in Sweden and the advice here is avoid blue cheese, salmon from the Baltic sea ( due to high mercury levels) and absolutely don't drink any alcohol, my friend was worried about me having a Bailey's flavoured icecream the other day. There don't seem to be any advice regarding coffee which is hugely popular, sil told me coffee was the only thing she could keep down when she was pregnant so she just sat drinking coffee all day, pregnant women are encouraged to eat liver pate as it's high in iron, I have had no advice about toxoplasma ( sp?) or Listeria.

What you say about the amount of licorice they eat in your country is really interesting (to me that's lots) and just goes to show why it's vital to listen to the HCP in your own country not the internet. Types of food eaten, food hygiene laws and even predominant ethnicity/associated health (e.g. some women are more prone to diabetes) mean that 'good' info for another country may not be needed/appropriate for you.

Or to understand why the advise exists in the first place and why differences exist between countries then exist. Eg, something like cured meats are generally considered ok in the Uk... but if you go on holiday is the same true? If you know that the food hygiene in that country is different, then perhaps you would take a different approach.

I don't see the point in just taking advice of HCPs at face value without probably knowing why it is you are avoiding something in the first place.

I wasn't actually advised not to eat liquorice it was just something I read when browsing "what not to eat whilstpregnant" websites.

Tge research was done in Finland which also has a high level of liquorice consumption.

If you take all the advice from all the various countries, there is very little it seems that you can eat. France says avoid salads and fruit in restaurants for example. The USA says no deli meat. If you followed it all you would end up living on French fries!

What amazes me is that no one mentions cytomegalovirus - which many young kids carry - yet go on and on about much smaller risks or unknown risks from peanuts or licorice or aspartame...

Exactly Oohdaddy the fact is avoidable infections/exposures don't cause many losses/abnormalities on a whole-population level, but interestingly much of the advice is about rarer things that there have been 'scares' for or are easily avoidable. And they give the advice with half an eye on either what we do every day or to avoid us doing something foolish.
e.g. How many women freak out on MN about the 'fumes' from hair dye or nail polish... but happily fill up their cars? The risks for all 3 are negligible of course but two are just 'vanity' so the web has a motive for hyping up the fear factor (don't be an evil vain mother, be a selfless one with grey hair showing how worthy you are).
On a more sensible level - some MW say not to empty cat litter because of toxo. None are going to say don't eat vegetables even though the risk from unwashed veg is higher... because women need vitamins and fibre unless you want prune juice and pain for 9 months so they just remind us to wash the veg rather than not eat it (though logically emptying the litter with rubber gloves and/or a good hot soap handwash would render it safe, I daresay that's what vets and zookeepers do).
Now a really, really obsessive cautious website might say to avoid veg - or would they, because there's the whole psychological side of feeding your baby good food...? Tough one for the guilt mongers, that!

Red personally I would follow the rules for the country I was in IYSWIM. In France for example I know fewer items are pasteurised, and in America meat curing/storage is slightly different.

loveallmyboys, baby's not here yet, I'm almost at 28 weeks but she's doing well in there despite panicking me for 7 month solid! The SCH has been absorbed with a bit of bleeding, but it went quite quickly. Was terrifying, I had scared myself stupid with stories on google. I also have the placenta previa, apparently the SCH makes it more likely, but again, that hasn't caused any problems apart from a bit of spotting and the baby's entirely oblivious.

My personal opinion is with the drinking, and in fact most things pregnant women are made to feel guilty over: if you're doing it ALL the time, and in excess, yes, you're increasing your chances of something happening- if you do it occasionally, or by accident, your risks are low enough for it to be OK. I spent the first 5 months doing everything by the book and had lots of issues, on the other hand, I had friends who smoked and drank the entirety and had entirely trouble free pregnancies. Personally I wouldn't choose to do something like that, but I think the odd deviation from the 'shouldn't' list is unlikely to cause harm in later pregnancy.

I've been drinking small amounts of alcohol throughout my pregancy with no adverse effect.
A small glass of wine every now and again is okay. You probably wouldn't feel like having more anyway.

After getting over the sickness of first tri I really missed booze so I was desperate to reassure my concerned husband that it was ok, despite my mum vouching that she had drunk a glass of wine with dinner regularly throughout her pgs (I am fine with no allergies, medical/MH issues at all!)
Then I found this brochure from NHS which said "if you do choose to drink, minimise the risk to your baby by limiting yourself to 1 or 2 units once or twice a week and don't get drunk."
Which has reassured us that a small glass of wine with dinner once or max twice a week is probably safe.

I drank beer with DS1 because red wine made me fall asleep and I went totally off it in the first trimester.

With DS2 I didn't have any aversions so continued with my 2 glasses of wine a week under advisement from my OBGYN. Apparently in moderate consumption (i.e. with dinner being drunk at a normal pace) the alcohol is metabolised by your own liver before it even reaches the placenta so the risk is very minimal.

Both kids are absolutely fine, healthy pregnancies and thriving.

You know yourself OP, if you feel like a glass of wine then have one and don't let anyone make you feel guilty. You're an adult capable of making your own decisions, and I doubt you'd be out on a bender!

Just to respond again to the last point, I double checked today and alcohol passes straight across the placenta to the baby, with the baby's blood alcohol level quickly reaching that of the mother. Alcohol then persists for longer in the baby because of the immature foetal liver so the baby's blood can contain alcohol even after the mother's level has gone back down.

Yes but what route does it take from sip to blood if you have just eaten a large meal? I know you think some people here are bonkers for drinking in pregnancy but we're not mainlining vodka? We're ingesting wine or beer orally.

I haven't expressed my personal opinion regarding alcohol on this thread at all, just discussed the latest research and responded to a couple of points where what I have been taught is different to what is being said. I'm not an expert on alcohol metabolism during pregnancy or otherwise, but I think having it with a meal just slows down the rate at which it is absorbed from the stomach which might mean that the mother's (and hence the baby's) peak blood alcohol level would be lower. It would not change the route by which anything crossed the placenta.

My mistake, I got you confused with someone else. [blush ]

Try again.....

Nailed it.

Good emoticon action!

And I've not even had a drink!!