Anyone else today's 'Observer' headlines about alcohol in pregnancy?

[atalantis]

I'm 14 weeks, and for the last 4 weeks or so I've been allowing myself one glass of lovely red wine on a Saturday night. I look forward to it every week; should I really have to stop? I'd be interested to hear your opinions...

Oh bol**cks to it all! It winds me up the way people go on about what you should and shouldn't do during pregnancy. How about we all just stay in bed for 9 months straight eating nothing but carrot sticks, drinking nothing but mineral water and breathing in nothing but our own fart enhanced, recycled oxygen! Then it's surely guarenteed that our babies will all come out all healthy with no probs at all, right? Every baby would be born perfect and healthy - WRONG! Things go wrong sometimes, not all babies are born healthy - but why is it always the mothers fault if something went wrong? Because of that 1 glass of wine she drank at xmas - what a load of crap! I swear people take things way too seriously!

I am NOT going to be scared into thinking I have done my baby any damage because i've had in total what, maybe 4 glasses of wine during my entire pregnancy! Excluding the few nights out drinking I had before I knew I was pregnant - which I was assured wouldn't have done any harm and the scan proved that. Should I be slapped on the wrist for also admitting that I've eaten some seafood during my pregnancy, and resturant mayo that probably didn't contain pasturized eggs? Should I feel like a failed mother already because I was in a club the other night and SHOCK HORROR, came into contact with some friends who were smoking!

Smite me down now oh great one for I have failed already!!! Seriously, I think some people really need to get a grip! If you don't want to drink any alcohol during your pregnancy then don't - that's fine, but don't come on here with a big scare fact sheet and make others feel bad for that one glass of wine they had!

With the full support of my GP, I "upped the quality and reduced the quantity" while I was pregnant - teaching him quality in utero!

I did cut out alchol totally weeks 6-10, as I understood that they were key weeks in the development of the feotus.

As my GP best friend (and mother of 4) says - far more important to have a happy and relaxed mother-to-be That *also contriubtes to the health of the baby!

Life is all about balance - we need to judge rsiks and an "all or nothing" apporach is not helpful.

What about the risk of DVT - which is a known risk of pregnancy? A samll amount of wine is supposed to help imporve circulation!

Ancovy
You are being defensive because of your own circumsatnces.

Australian and USA health systems both recommend no alcohol because it is unknown, UK is trying to follow.

It is not scare mongering women, it is a precaution

IT doesn't matter if I am a doctor, but I have read enough and asked enough doctor's myself. There are many, many, journals, articles and websites that now unify in abstinence. The Observor is by no way the first article. I first read about refraining from alcohol in 1990, and I have followed the topic with interest.

9 months plus breast feeding is not along time to refrain from alcohol and you really are giving your baby the best start to refrain.

On another point. People now drink alot more alcohol than they used to -Have a look at alcohol consumption patterns from 1970 to now. This is why this is a more importnant issue now for pregnant women and women trying to conceive.

My DH agrees with the "relaxed mother" theory too. Granted it would be better if I could learn to relax as easily another way, but when I'm about to burst into tears with stress about something, he's the first one to sit me down with a glass of wine and say, "Drink this and calm down a bit." My blood pressure going up, must be as bad, if not worse than the very small possibility of FAS.

Actually, a woman I know who had her baby at the previously-quoted Portland, was told by the consultant (who also works out of the NHS UCH hospital, but isn't allowed to say it there), that a small glass of red is a great way to prevent uncomfortable Braxton Hicks contractions fromm bother you at night.

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Interesting, Uki: I asked myself if I was being defensive and decided I wasn't.

I sought medical advice when I was pregnant as to whether it was ok to have the odd glass of wine when pregnant. My consultant - who I'm pretty sure knows a lot more about it than you, that being her actual job etc - and more to the point knew me and my circumstances said it was fine.

The US is not a great model for us as it is liability led: the point is no doctor is going to get sued if they tell all patients that they should give up drinking. The liability and insurance provisions in the US force an extremely conservative view in some respects. That in itself does not make the odd glass of wine in pregnancy dangerous.

I'm entirely happy for you to do what you want when pregnant. I think you not drinking in pregnancy is laudable. But I don't think that it follows that other people can't take an informed decision to have the odd glass of wine in pregnancy and should be able to do so without guilt or vilification.

That is also a completely different point to the "increase in general alcohol consumption" point. Sure alcohol consumption has gone up - but what we are talking about here is whether people can have 1 or 2 glasses of wine a week, not how much people actually drink overall.

I think it's a mistake to assume medical professionals - especially GPs - are necessarily the font of all knowledge where this kind of contested issue is concerned. Nowadays, with so much readily accessible information available on the internet, they're only privy to the same studies and reports as the rest of us laypeople. It's also worth noting that the UK is pretty much the only western country where the policy isn't towards complete abstinence in pregnancy.

I've had the very occasional glass of wine during my pregnancy but I think 3 to 4 glasses a week is pushing it, to be honest, especially given that even government advice says 1-2 units a week, and it's been found that a unit = approx 80mls of wine - so that's over 4 units in one large glass.

jesus, my maths is rubbish. 3 units per glass, that is, so up to 12 units a week if you're having 3 or 4 glasses of wine a week.

'It is not scare mongering women, it is a precaution'.

I disagree, I think that's exactly what it is - scare mongering! Every sensible (and even non-sensible) woman knows that excessive drinking can be very dangerous during life, not to mention pregnancy. That is why these sensible women either choose to stop drinking all together, or cut down and only have a drink every now and then whilst pregnant. However, badgering these women who have one every now and then into thinking that by doing so they have caused their unborn child some sort of brain damage is, in my opinion scare mongering.
I think that making women feel guilty for having that one glass every now and then causing them to panic and stress, is far worse off for them and for the baby then actually drinking that one glass.

But summerfruit - it isn't only 9 months is it? You are supposed to abstain completely even if you are trying for a babay

A lot of women take a while to conceive. In my case I took 3 years. Add that to 9 months of pregnancy and 2 years of breastfeeding (if you want to be absolutely safe) and you end up with close to 6 years during which I should not have drunk any alcohol at all and that is for only one child. If I had been younger and gone on to try for other children then on this advice I pretty much should been alcohol free for many many years.

Actually I drank very little in the 3 years I was trying to conceive (1-2 drinks every few weeks and about 1-2 drinks in total in my 9 months of pregnancy) I did drink some. I also drank a glass of wine occasionally when breastfeeding (in fact probably more than a few in the early weeks to help me relax and to cope with the pain).

I think if someone has a problem with alcohol and has trouble restircting their intake when necessary then they need to address that and maybe need to give up alcohol completely, whether pregnant or not.

As someone who has no problem restricting my alcohol intake if I need to I find it incredibly irritating to be told that I must not drink 'any' alcohol 'ever' when pregnant or trying for a baby. I am an adult and while I certainly want to know all the information possible I will make a decision based on what I believe is a risk I can live with.

Lazycow - I think you're only supposed to abstain completely if you're trying for a baby because alcohol is thought to lessen your chances of conception. I might be wrong though. It didn't lessen my chances, anyway - my baby (due Apr 7) was conceived on a drunken weekend away at a friend's wedding.

the trouble with the medical info available on the internet is that it's often taken out of context
for every study saying X you can find one saying Y
now i'm not saying you "should" drink in pregnancy, i'm saying that in my opinion and that of my GP, Obs and other medical colleagues a couple of glasses a week probably isn't going to do any harm and may benefit re the stress relief element
certainly the stress we were under when my husband had his stroke would have put more stress on my baby than when we had a glass of wine with dinner when trying to get back to normal!
however do agree that you have to watch the size of your glass, we tend to drink at home and infact drink from much smaller glasses than when out

Oh FFS most women in the west throughout most of history have drunk throughout the whole of pregnancy, very mild ale, as someone else said. And in more recent times, many have drunk in the first vital few weeks of foetal development, when they didn't know they were pregnant.

And yet there are no swathes of children with FAS everywhere. FAS has a genetic factor which means that some people can drink loads without it affecting their child and others can't.

But no-one is going to convince me that one gin and tonic at 6 weeks is a crime against a foetus. These guidelines aren't about scaremongering but they are about controlling women. The more autonomy and independence women get outside their homes in society, the more society seeks to control them via their bodies, whether it be by persuading them that the only way they will be seen as beautiful is by starving themselves, by condemning them for breastfeeding outside their homes (something which wouldn't have occurred to anyone as something to be condemned before the 20th century) or by appointing the world and his wife as food, drink and behaviour monitors when a woman is pregant.

Frankly, if some of you can't see the social/ feminist-ishoo implications of this, you're being thick.

Parp.

Sorry to hear about your husband's stroke, dunscared. I hope he's better now - that must have been a very frightening time.

Blimey Caligula you really do think the world is out to control us women don't you?

2 years of breastfeeding ?!? LOL.

I'm not sure how relevant the breastfeeding issues are here, to be honest. I'm not denying there is a feminist dimension to this discussion but at the same time - if it's known that alcohol is potentially harmful to the foetus, in even small quantities, women should know about that and be given the opportunity to make as informed a decision as possible in the light of what information is available.

I have to confess that when I have my weekly glass of wine, I often think to myself, 'I am an adult woman as well as a mother-to-be.' I spend so much time being anxious about the baby inside me and what the future holds for us both that I do really enjoy 'reclaiming' a sense of normality, just for one evening. I don't want this to sound as though I regard the glass of wine as an act of hostility towards the baby; if I believed for one minute that it would do any damage, I wouldn't drink it at all. But with the special diet and other important lifestyle changes that come with being pregnant, it is really nice just once in a while to do something very small that creates a sense of continuity between life before, during, and after pregnancy.

Caligula - so true - That is what annoys me about it too.

As for the lol at 2 years of breastfeeding - not sure what that is about. This isn't a breastfeeding thread but I did breastfeed ds for 2 years - it wasn't a joke.

that's interesting too, atalantis - I have felt that way myself: wanting to retain some of the autonomy I had before I got pregnant, rather than just being a baby-incubator for 9 months. That's why I have an "individual" approach to food guidelines about runny cheese and smoked salmon and the like. I've had the odd glass of wine too. And I wouldn't judge any other woman for any of the decisions she makes in pregnancy - all I can say is whether I would or wouldn't make those decisions myself.

Northerner - yes!

And if we're not aware of it and don't resist it, the world will.

I don't want to live in a country where a pregnant woman can be arrested for drinking a glass of wine with her meal.

This has happened in the USA. If you're not worried by that, and the attitude that that implies about women and their status in society, then that's up to you, but I think anyone who has daughters ought to be.

There are grandmothers living in Afghanistan who never thought they'd see their granddaughters in a burkha. Breastfeeding, burkhas, booze and backlashes are all connected. But I'm supposed to be working so don't have time to go into it now.

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I'm supposed to be working too!

Of course I don't want to see women arrested for drinking a glass of wine whilst pregnent. Just don't think that it is connectied to controlling women in a feminist ishoo type of way like burkhas etc.

But then I am not as educated as you are and do not delve into the issue as deep as perhaps I should.

I would love to spend an evening with you Caligula over a bottle of wine, really I would.

Next meet up!

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