Date night tonight - would one drink be ok?

[Motherof1and2dogs]

Just curious to see what answers I get for this one.
So I am having a very rare date night with the husband due to having a toddler and the lack of babysitting help/ support we get. Currently 32 weeks pregnant, yes very uncomfortable and very big at this stage but really looking forward to our meal! We have so much to celebrate and we haven’t really had the chance to :(

Would having one alcoholic drink be ok to have with my meal, but something like a cocktail? I would kill for a frozen strawberry daiquiri.

I'd have a small glass of wine. Read Expecting Better.

Basically, if you wouldn't give it to your newborn, you shouldn't have it.

The placenta cannot filter alcohol at all. By drinking it, it is going directly to your unborn baby. There's no magical barrier protecting them from it. They get the effect, like you do.

It's true that one drink is very unlikely to harm your baby, but would you actually give it to them? - Because that is what you'd be doing.

There is evidence to suggest that heavy consumption of alcohol in pregnancy can be harmful. There is none (that I'm aware of) to suggest that the odd drink is harmful. Tryijng to pinpoint a 'safe' level that applies to everyone is extremely difficult and is an impossibly 'woolly' message to try to convey to the public at large. So it is cleaner and easier to give to guidance to the public to avoid alcohol completely during pregnancy. As a (presumably) intelligent adult you are free to make your own decisions.

This is not true, unless you are injecting the alcohol directly into the placenta.

The level of alcohol the baby is exposed to, is the % in your blood stream. You have to digest it.

It does not cross directly to the baby - how would this work?

Yes, please. I'd love to read them.

You've got your whole life to drink. There is a tiny 9 month period of time where you're told it would be better not to.

The placenta is a barrier, which filters out harmful substances from the mother's bloodstream before they reach the fetus.

But there are some things it can't filter, and alcohol is one of them.

Alcohol will pass (via the blood, yes, obviously), straight through the placenta and to the baby.

I understand what you are saying about digestion, but that really doesn't matter.

The point is that by drinking alcohol, your baby is also drinking alcohol.

About 20% of the alcohol you drink will end up in your blood. I wouldn't give my baby 20% of a glass of wine - most people wouldn't - so why would I give it to my unborn baby through my blood?

I did have a very occasional spritzer. And 20 years later I regret it. It was only 9 months, I wish I’d just gone without.

This shows no understanding of how the body processes alcohol.

You drink one small glass of wine. Your blood alcohol content level will be ~ 0.03%.

So your baby isn’t exposed to ‘20% of a glass of wine’, it’s exposed to a blood alcohol level of 0.03%.

You are not giving your baby 20% of a glass of wine .

Am I advocating drink frequently or more than one drink during pregnancy? No. But let’s actually use science to answer the question rather than hysteria.

You know that people will look at forums like this trying to weigh up whether to drink or not when they are pregnant? And that a lot of people will roughly scan the responses without much thought?

If you basically agree with me (and pretty much all medical advice) that it's not a good idea to drink when pregnant, why are you arguing such petty points? It doesn't matter.

Alcohol crosses the placenta. When you drink alcohol, your unborn baby's blood alcohol level becomes similar to yours. The fetus cannot safely process alcohol.

I wouldn't be giving a newborn baby a single drop of alcohol. If you wouldn't either, why would you advocate giving it to them when they're inside you.

Midnight patrol's answer, being clearly more scientific, is more likely to persuade me not to drink than the hyperbole of "you wouldn't give it to a new born so you shouldn't have it" (I wouldn't give a newborn Percy Pigs or pizza either, but I'm having it!)

There is no way a baby is born with FAS after a few drinks once! No way.