Alcohol in pregnancy

[yvonneb13]

Hi everyone I have a big celebration tonight with family. I know just recommend not to drink at all
I'm 22 weeks Almost 23 weeks would you or have you had say an Alcapop or small wine or something when celebrating I don't smoke and I haven't touched alcohol since I found out. What's your thoughts?

I wouldn't worry about 0.5% not counting as alcohol free. If you're being strict about 0%, you need to consider a lot of other non -obvious things too, like fruit juice and bananas

FAS is a syndrome, not really a medical condition. That is to say that it's a collection of symptoms which they blame on a mother's drinking. There is no scientific correlation or proof of the syndrome (or collection of symptoms) having being caused by alcohol.
It could just as likely be caused by poor diet, poverty, negligent healthcare, stress during pregnancy etc. etc.

If your baby was already here would you give them a small amount of alcohol?
There is your answer!

Years ago we did! Gripe water? A spoonful of whiskey? Ok, just my grandparents then?

The baby eats whatever your taking can't you enjoy yourself without alcohol for just 9 months?

I personally wouldn't as I wouldn't want my babies tiny liver having to process the alcohol

Wait, am I reading this right?! are people really trying to validate smoking during pregnancy? 😵‍💫

And people didn’t have seat belts. Corporal punishment in schools was standard. Babies were fed condensed milk.

So?

Just read this

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1472723/

What causes miscarriage, birth defects then? Most women don't drink and those things have existed as long as life has existed.

I wouldn't.

I massively judge women who drink or smoke in pregnancy.

Just abstain for nine months. It's not that hard.

I'm not pregnant but didn't drink when I was or whilst breastfeeding.

I wonder why this label is on my bottle of wine if drinking alcohol is fine when pregnant?

I had a glass of when at maybe 5 different occasions when pregnant. Baby is here and is perfect. There are great 0% options if u are really worried. Don't let anyone make u feel guilty or shit no matter what u decide. Your body, your baby!

Wow 10 years ago I had a small glass of wine once a week. No obvious issues... Have a look back at historic threads eg www.mumsnet.com/talk/pregnancy/1905747-Glass-of-wine if you want to see how times have changed (and I don't think we have primarys chools full of children who were damaged by it)

Goodness me. There is ample proof that both smoking and alcohol exposure in utero are bad for infant development.

Smoking reduces oxygenation of the baby, increases the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, leads to infants who are more likely to be premature or small for age and who are more likely to have problems with their own lungs (at birth and throughout life).

Alcohol is a teratogen - a substance which damages, changes, and kills cells. A baby in utero is nothing but a bundle of developing cells, particularly the brain. As a result alcohol exposure risks every part of an infant's brain and body development, throughout their life.

One glass of wine, like one cigarette is not going to lead to these outcomes. But, given the mechanism of impact (eg how they cause bad outcomes) I just don't see why you'd bother to be social.

Give me the proof. Give me a link to the researched papers.

If any one of you can find one study, one peer-reviewed study, just one, which makes an absolute correlation between alcohol in pregnancy and birth defects, could you please link it here.

I don't really understand your position @WhereIam 😕. The paper you linked summarises the evidence base from 2006 (so a bit out of date), and overall says that prenatal alcohol exposure is linked to x, y, z outcomes.

Just from a brief google, there's:

Neurocognitive outcomes of prenatal alcohol exposure: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acer.14040

How genetics interacts with prenatal alcohol exposure:
obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pd.5731

This paper looks at molecular effects of prenatal alcohol exposure
www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0095-4 (quote from this "A substantial scientific knowledge about the harmful effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy on the developing fetus exists." and "Besides direct ethanol and acetaldehyde toxicity, alcohol increases oxidative stress, and subsequent general effects".

It prevents you from suing them.

4 minutes for you to reply with 3 links? I'm going to guess you haven't read those studies?

I think this is getting a little out of hand.
It is up to you what you choose to do.
I have chosen not to drink but have friends who did and their babies were fine.
I found out at 4 weeks and had, had a couple of big nights out. Not nice to read people commenting about you destroying your babies cells when you didn’t even know.
I have also realised since being on here this is common with a lot of women not finding out until after a missed period.
we all have to live with our decisions but shaming each other won’t help anything.

Correct and stressing a mother out is as likely to cause damage to a baby in utero as alcohol or cigarettes.

I used to work in a related field @WhereIam . So I have read much literature around it (although admittedly haven't had the chance to read that Nature paper).

Absolute correlation - just to clarify are you looking for something that gives a precise causal link or correlation link? As I'm sure you're aware, it's a tough research field, because you cannot take 500 pregnant women and give them various amounts of alcohol throughout a pregnancy.

So the studies that look at the cell level changes will be in monkeys whereas studies that look at correlations between level of alcohol and human infant outcomes will be 1) self reported alcohol amounts and 2) have a lot of covariates eg nutrition, smoking, other drug exposure, etc. The same problems come with pretty much any study into exposure and their impacts on outcomes for infants (eg smoking studies, pollution, vaccine safety etc).

That's precisely my point.

Personally, I wouldn’t bother as one small glass is likely to just wet my appetite and make me want more. I’m also using pregnancy as a bit of a detox and healthy eating kick.

That being said given that women were advised not that long ago in the UK that 1 - 2 units of alcohol a week was okay and with no subsequent definitive research this was changed to no alcohol, I believe it is probably fine. It would seem that since no study could ethically take place to prove or disprove the harmful affects of alcohol, medical advice errs completely on the side of caution and says ‘no alcohol’. Also, most likely, women aren’t trusted to limit themselves.

‘Expecting better’ is an interest read, where the author goes through various recommendations given to pregnant women and assesses them. The author felt that there wasnt evidence to support that small amounts of alcohol would harm the baby. Though to be fair it is a bit out of date.

Anyway, you do what you think is best and have a great night!