Just found out I'm pregnant - how worried should I be that I have spent the last 2 months guzzling G&Ts?

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Have a DS who is 18 months old - stopped breastfeeding at 16 months and went a little overboard with my new-found bodily freedom, and have had about 5 nights of fairly heavy drinking (4-5 glasses of wine, on one occasion more like 2 bottles) in the last 2 months - and I'm 8 weeks preg. (only just realised. Am so used to not having regular perids due to BF that I didn't notice !).
We weren't trying to conceive but also weren't not trying to conceive, so it's a happy (if very badly timed career-wise) accident. The only thing I'm really worried about is the fact that I've been so boozy.
Should I be worried? I also had a couple of sneaky cigs .

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With that daily mail article here I'm reading "...and I continued to get bladdered every night not realising I was pregnant"

I was initially a bit but realistically (and reading it again) think this lady was drinking quite a lot on the first few months (not days) of pregnancy....

"ONE glass of wine will damage your baby for LIFE."
I mean come on. If that isn't scaremongering, then I don't know what is.
One glass....for LIFE.
Oh pleeeeeeasssseee.

my gp said few glasses of wine absolutely fine and that the only reason they advise no alcohol at all is because of fears about binge drinking. i shared a bottle of wine with my midwives while in (a very long) labour with ds2 9 weeks ago... and he seems to have turned out alright...

lol @ 'denial wine'

I spent all of December in a thick booze fug (birthday/Christmas parties/Christmas/general attempt to block out grief), and of course that was the time I actually fell pregnant. I did manage to test before NYE, thankfully, but so many of us must have been conceived in a haze of drink, drugs and fag smoke, and we're all alright...aren't we?

Well if that's true then there are a lot of damaged children out there! Including my first and the one I have in the oven now!

I'm sure that it is the difference between 'drinking' and 'binge drinking' that's the problem. Trouble is some people think binge drinking IS normal.

I found this online, which makes a lot of sense to me:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/may/29/health.medicineandhealth

Interesting about listeriosis as well in the article. Of course now we have all been scared into avoiding certain foods for so long, who would dare go against the 'advice?'

Seems to me that the government don't actually know the real risks, and the people who don't know shouldn't be giving advice.

FWIW, I didn't know I was pregnant til I was around 12 weeks, by which point I'd drank, smoked, eaten all the stuff you're not supposed to, and been to Paris for a weekend where I'd done that to the power of ten! Everything is absolutely fine, and I'm about 31 weeks now.

Also, a friend totally followed the guidelines, to the point of freaking out one day when she accidentally had a BITE of parma ham (and then made herself throw up afterwards!) and she was the one who had a premature baby and terrible PND.

I'm not saying that anyone should be boozing hugely when pregnant, but we shouldn't be scaremongered.

Congratulations, don't worry, and enjoy the rest of your pregnancy!

whinegums, that is an excellent article. Zoe Williams normally brings me out in a rash but I can't fault her there.

It makes me quite sad to see pregnant women tying themselves in knots over eating a bit of bagged salad or having a sip of wine. There's enough to worry about in pregnancy anyway without adding to it ourselves! There is so much contradictory advice out there that I've just been trying to use sensible judgement, i.e. maintaining good food and general hygiene and not eating raw flesh, both of which I would be doing anyway. And yes, I have had the occasional glass of wine or small beer.

Cyteen, yes I know what you mean about Zoe Williams!!

Has anyone on Mumsnet ever had or known in RL a child born with FAS I wonder? When you think about all the rarely occurring things that can happen, most of them have been covered somewhere on these boards, but I don't ever recall seeing any posts from anyone with direct experience.

There are so many posts like mine - i.e. drank like a fish before finding out, ate cheese, pate, etc, and had a few glasses throughout pregnancy, and I don't see a single one of those posters coming back to say something bad happened.

I may of course be wrong, and will go and hide now from the deluge!

It's also worth noting the difference between Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Foetal Alcohol SPectrum Disorder which appears to be a collection of random symptoms lumped together as down to Evil Selfish Women who WOn't Do As They're Told. Also there is so much either moronic or malevolent blurring of the line between 'increases the risk of' and 'causes'. Drinking alcohol and eating pate do not inevitably lead to damaged babies or there would be far, far more of them.