Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

[Sherberty]

So I've done my research and there's no safe level of alcohol exposure for stopping fetal alcohol syndrome.

I've read published scientific papers where they've assessed exposure for those at risk of high exposure in the work place, I. E. Health care workers in hospitals with no windows etc and the results were quite alarming.

But... Surely if high exposure in these settings and in other potentially high exposure settings like pubs/bars exists, which it does, then surely women in those professions would more often than not have children with fetal alcohol syndrome? And if this is true then surely this would be well documented and measures put in place but nothing is?

So erm use a mask at all times in case you walk past a pub or a drunk person... sorted!
I just love that someone wants to blame women who don’t drink during pregnancy for not thinking about the other ways they could be damaging.
their child.
Ofthe 6-7,000 babies born with FAS - how many didn’t drink during pregnancy but used hand sanitiser or inhaled fumes?

Born per year in the UK I should have said

You sound hysterical

@Krazynights34
Right!!! As if I haven't got enough to worry about when making a little human and trying to do everything right, now I've got to overthink the things I do to look after and protect myself ESPECIALLY during a global pandemic. It's too much. Why are we trying to add more stresses to women when there isn't any need to. How many cases are they where this has even happened!

They say there is no safe limit because every woman is a different size, can tolerate alcohol at different levels etc. And if they say you can have safely one or two drinks then it can be interpreted very differently.
Like I could imagine that to be one or two shandies and then the next person could think it's a pint of vodka...

And to avoid being sued. Basically it covers their arse if they just say "don't drink" or "it's not safe" because they can't exactly carry out experiments can they or else they'd risk damaging babies whilst they did it.

@Sherberty. I think that's pretty obvious: the NHS say there's no safe limit because they're talking about DRINKING alcoholic drinks, not about the small amount of alcohol you might get from a glass of juice or, certainly, kombucha, or in a stew, or, definitely (!) from inhaling hand sanitizer.

In fact, there clearly is a safe limit, even with alcoholic drinks. We just aren't sure what it is, and the NHS wants to err on the side of discouraging people from drinking at all. The worry isn't a woman having a half a glass of wine every few weeks, it's habitual drinkers thinking 'oh one drink a day is OK, make mine a double' and then losing restraint and carrying on.

Has no-one thought that this is typical of the male world - let’s find ways to make women the reasons things go wrong in pregnancy.
I didn’t read it but I saw the Daily Fail headline re stillbirths increasing during this pandemic and it suggests that women weren’t seeking care, which is why there was an increase., as opposed to GPS and hospital appointments being cancelled or not available.
I lost my first DD at full term to a placental abruption. The hospital were shit at the stage of my coming in. I had begged them (through pain) and they wouldn’t let me come in. But for weeks before that I’d been saying there was something wrong- baby’s movements slowing, she was still in the breach position etc.
That was in 2013.
Nothing changes- toxicology my arse! People are just looking for ways to blame women for what is very very unlikely to be their fault.
As for FAS - before a placenta is formed, there is no way alcohol can affect a baby - despite the current news items to the effect that a week old pregnancy (ie when you are having your period) can cause FAS. If that were the case, obviously millions of babies would have FAS.
The world is skewed against pregnant women and women in general.
This has made me want to scream

Woke up for one of my many nightly pees and absolutely howling in bed reading this

Maybe a way to put this to bed is to make sure you don’t drink hand sanitiser.

Only if you drink it

This is supported by research announced in 2017, which was undertaken in response to the US Federal Drug Association’s (FDA) request for more data on the safety of alcohol rubs, and concluded that pregnant and breastfeeding healthcare workers are well within safe exposure limits and can use alcohol hand rubs without risk to foetus or baby. “The internal doses of ethanol associated with frequent use of hand sanitizers and scrubs are hundreds of times lower than the concentration that might be related to [reproductive] developmental effects,” said Andrew Maier, PhD, CIH, DABT.

This is the conclusion from the first article you posted:

In conclusion, the blood alcohol levels found in Kramer et al's study for all strengths of alcohol-based hand sanitizers are all well below the 4.6 mg/dL level found to cause adverse neurologic developmental effects in laboratory animals, and Bessonneau et al's study does not suggest a significant inhalation exposure to health care workers.

Your second link is broken so I haven’t read it.

So the science doesn’t really support what you’re saying! The article is concluding that there was no evidence that use of alcohol based hand sanitizers led to a blood alcohol content that was anywhere near the level seen to cause adverse effects in animals. However, because there is no amount of blood alcohol which has been ‘proven’ safe, pregnant healthcare workers may choose to switch to a non-alcohol based sanitiser. Please bear in mind that the reason there is no ‘safe minimum’ is not because evidence shows that any quantity of alcohol in the blood is harmful; it’s because the required tests can’t be done because it would be unethical to experiment on pregnant women.

It’s also worth you considering that the situation described in that article is completely different to that of someone working in a pub. The article describes healthcare workers using a sanitizer which is 85% alcohol or higher up to 100 times a day, in rooms with poor ventilation. That is not remotely comparable to the level of exposure of someone pulling pints and pouring out vodka shots in a pub.

So you’re not pregnant? Just trying to make already anxious women feel shitty about having a small glass of wine occasionally or having had a few drinks before they realised they were pregnant? Well done 👍

Who peer reviewed these “scientific papers” that you read? Where did you read them and who published them?

I think OP had one too many sherries. Put some water in it next time love!

I think you're getting mixed up between 'no safe level' and 'any alcohol causes FAS' which is a very specific condition and not what is being referred to when generic 'harm' is used

*This is the conclusion from the first article you posted:

In conclusion, the blood alcohol levels found in Kramer et al's study for all strengths of alcohol-based hand sanitizers are all well below the 4.6 mg/dL level found to cause adverse neurologic developmental effects in laboratory animals, and Bessonneau et al's study does not suggest a significant inhalation exposure to health care workers*

If she is studying toxicology, she might want to consider properly reading the papers she is referencing.

[quote Sherberty]@hopsalong so why does the NHS say there is no safe limit?
@Fallada again in think you've mis read the original post. I never claimed it did I was asking a question for discussion. The science suggests it could. See: journals.lww.com/joem/fulltext/2012/01000/the_use_of_alcohol_based_hand_sanitizers_by.4.aspx
And:
Study Finds That No Amount of Alcohol Is Safe During Pregnancy www.healthline.com/health-news/theres-no-safe-amount-of-drinking-during-pregnancy
"And as the researchers conclude, no evidence of harm is not the same as evidence of no harm: there could still be risks that haven't been identified."https://www.nhs.uk/news/pregnancy-and-child/no-change-alcohol-guidelines-pregnancy/
"although there's no proven "safe" level of alcohol in pregnancy"https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/foetal-alcohol-syndrome/

When you read the research paper in combination with the rest you can see there is no set answer. Yes obviously the results of abnormalities would be lower but my point being that they're not ruled out.

Again I'm only asking questions not making points.[/quote]
@Sherberty there is no safe amount known because it's also not ethical to test this. Yes there are other variables that a PP has pointed out too though.

They can't take 100 pregnant women, give them different amounts of alcohol then just leave some with babies with FAS. That's also why there are so many over the counter medicines not suitable during pregnancy, it's not ethical to test them just in case.

My understanding is no safe level is that it's unethical to actually experiment to find out. So they ask Morag and Shiela how much they drank, but adults are forgetful, and will lie if they think they'll be judged. So when Shiela and Morag have children with FAS, they don't actually know what level of alcohol they consumed.
If they could take 1000 women and control their social limit from 0 to bladdered every night and then study the kids, they'd find a safe alcohol limit.

That isn't the same as saying hand sanitizer fumes will cause it.

And that's before we get onto a discussion on how much alcohol fumes hand sanitizer gives off, and how much you'd inhale putting it on your hands 30 times a day

For a long time guiness and other drinks like stout were prescribed in pregnancy. They were thought to help iron deficiency.

The vast majority of kids born before the 80’s would have FAS if small amounts could cause it. Or at least we’d see a statistically significant decrease since those generations. We don’t though.

OP I think it was really irresponsible of you to post something like this on the pregnancy boards. Especially not immediately posting your source and at a time when there are fewer people awake to look at it and explain why your logic was wrong. You may say you were ‘only asking questions’ but you presented it as a scientific fact.

There will be a few pregnant anxious women who will have had their anxiety levels increased by this. And other people who will add this to their anti-mask conspiracies and use it to worry even more pregnant women via social media.

For future reference - anyone here or on social media who writes “so I’ve done my research” is someone who has either read a whole load of not-science or who has read one peer reviewed science paper and either misinterpreted it, or added a few non-logical leaps to its conclusion.

I imagine there are plenty of toxicology fora where you could discuss this to your heart’s content. This is a support forum for pregnant women, many of whom are dealing with serious anxiety. Your wide-eyed insistence that you just want to discuss the SCIENCE is crass to the point of goady.

@EmilySpinach very, very good point 👏🏻

Well to answer your wide eyed innocent questions @Sherberty
Surely if high exposure in these settings and in other potentially high exposure settings like pubs/bars exists, which it does, then surely women in those professions would more often than not have children with fetal alcohol syndrome?*

But high exposure does not exist in these settings and so no there is no more risk

And if this is true then surely this would be well documented and measures put in place but nothing is?

*Because it's not true.

The research shared on this thread clearly supports that there's no risk

You seem to be creating scenarios despite the evidence and asking nonsensical questions based on false assumptions*

So I've done my research and there's no safe level of alcohol exposure for stopping fetal alcohol syndrome.

You don't seem to understand how FAS occurs. You don't stop foetal alcohol syndrome - it doesn't happen spontaneously. You should be looking for threshold levels above which it is triggered.

I've read published scientific papers where they've assessed exposure for those at risk of high exposure in the work place, I. E. Health care workers in hospitals with no windows etc and the results were quite alarming.

You haven't linked to any research that supports this.

Honestly you come across as not being able to understand basic physiology or research (or even able to read the conclusions).

I suggest you work on educating yourself in basic science before you take on the great hand sanitiser-FAS conspiracy

@Sherberty and I think you’re getting your answers. If you think of all the thousands of pregnant women who are nurses, doctors, care workers, using alcohol gel frequently I think we would know if there was a link to fetal alcohol syndrome. So I think common sense tells us it’s ok to use a bit of alcohol gel during a pandemic.