whats the current advice on drinking in pregnancy??

[SparklyGothKat]

not for me!! for misdee

I know what you mean Aitch - GPs have the very difficult job of having to know something about everything and anything that a patient might bring through the door - consultants have the luxury of specialisation. I know what you mean about respecting a Dr who is happy to say 'I'll look it up - my obstetrician is fab like that - I had a heart attack at 35yrs old - (not due to obesity or anything like that but due to artery spasms)and suffer from angina - obviously there are not many women who have babies after having heart attacks - and even fewer when it's due to artery spasms - my ob was brilliant about it - admitted she'd been back to her books and checked the latest research when she read my referral letter but didnt find much help so (apart from a few drugs I shouldn't be given)we'd have to use common sense and work things out as we went along. I found that much more reassuring than if she'd not been honest about not knowing

Does anyone HONESTLY know any children with FAS as well as the mothers history? And I mean HONESTLY - there are some suspicious posters on some US talkboards who seem to have a nasty agenda.

No ...never met one

Jette - yes I have met children with FAS. I worked in the disability sector. It is actually the fastest growing cause of learning disability in babies born in this country but for some reason even disability campaigners don't really want to talk about it.

But I still believe that small amounts of alcohol can be OK.

I abstained totally from alcohol for first trimester and then had a small glass of red wine no more than once a week after that. That is what felt OK to me. Guess you need to follow your instincts to a certain extent.

Lulubai - did you know anything about their mothers history ...that would be the most interesting bit ...was there anyone who you were surprised had a child with FAS ..someone who was'nt a 'drinker'?

I drink Champagne and wine in all pregnancies. Usually one or two times a week. I usually have 1 to 4 glasses. 4 would be rare, say once a month. Have spoken to all midwives, sonographers about this, none have even raised an eyebrow to it. Other people do seem shocked though. All our parents carried on boozing didn't they. My mum said she continued with her double g & t followed by 2 glasses of wine at dinner through out all her pregnancies, and smoked.
Mother in law the same, said she always had a pre-dinner drink and wine with dinner through out.

for some reason, i'm craving whisky.

i normally can't stand the stuff.

don't have any in the house just the now, but Famous Grouse in on offer in Somerfield.

nah, i don't think i'll have it.

i plan on having a glass of white wine at a grown ups meal the day DD1 finishes nursery.

mmmm, it's going to taste good.

Children I met were older - I wouldn't have come into contact with the mother's while they were pregnant as they only come into contact with disability services once a diagnosis is made. However I think that the mothers of these kids were usually pretty heavy drinkers.

FAS is a sliding scale though and often only the most extreme cases are actually pinpointed as being alcohol related. There can be a characteristic facial disfigurement at the more extreme end of the spectrum which is hard to disguise as anything else. Many children with learning disabilites are diagnosed as have non-specific learning disabilities or some other vague title. Possibly to avoid incurring guilt in the mothers.

Unfortunatly saying well our parents did it and we are all ok is as unscientific as saying well large amounts of alcohol are proven to be bad therefore small amounts of alchol must be bad as well.

Whisky? I'm craving cold fizzy lager. Hmmm. Think will hold off for a few more weeks though.

Yeah Flum - My mother smoked when pregnant with me. I was a 9lb baby (she's only 5'2"). She is absolutely unrepentant "Imagine how huge you would have been if I hadn't smoked". Yeah, cheers mum.

i do. my friend's adopted brother had it, his was a completely tormented life tbh. but his birth mother and stepfather had also abused him and he had the cigarette burns to prove it. it wasn't much talked about then, more than twenty years ago. certainly it was in the papers that she had been drinking and on drugs after his birth, so one presumes the same prior.

aggiepanther, my obs is great as well. runs the entire district maternity service and yet was always there for every scan of mine. lovely guy, brain the size of a house and most importantly of all, DOESN'T have an opinion on everything.

i was talking to him the other day about this sort of thing (he's of the opinion that a few drinks won't do any harm at all, and he's in charge of the dependent babies unit so has seen the horrors) and he was saying that the good thing about being 'high up' is that you don't feel you have to give direction because unlike a GP there may be no continuing relationship, just information and support to make the right decision for the couple. i do think it must be difficult for GPs having to do everything and be everything for patients (as well as juggling finances and targets etc.) mind you, they're not badly off for it.

Erm a GP is a consultant.

A consultant in being a GP. Would you go to a heart consultant to ask about your bladder? I've seen a few GP's about my condition and they tend to go "errrrrr..." some have gone one better and said "that's a pregnancy condition, why are you worrying about it?" (great to hear such confidence from my GP when they spout rubbish)tell that to the men in my support group or the woman who's brother died from a massive heart attack after deciding he didn't need to be tested and was the only one (apart from his sister, the reason everyone got tested) who had it. One GP said they didn't know and would refer me to the hospital, best response I've had.

I think the difference between then and now is before women would have a drink or two, these days women are binge drinking. Your liver can handle a unit in an hour, not 10!

ach she knew what i meant, TM, she was just being pedantic. i must say i do find the 'erm' rude, i've mentioned it before on other threads. erm, chill out, get a grip, all these things i think are calculated little sniders. however... it was interesting how many people didn't think it was a problem, though, so it's evidently horses for courses.

and tbh i love any professional who says that they don't know the answer but they'll find out or refer on, i think it's a very attractive lack of ego and actually makes me trust them more rather than less.

You said
"GPs a lot, tbh. i prefer dealing with consultants and higher up "

and you thought the erm was snide? Your post suggested that GPs were not consultant level. I am sure you get rubbish hospital consultants and rubbish GP consultants.
Also what is higher up than a consultant? you get a director of a department and in big teaching hospitals have professors, but once you get to consultant all you will gain is experience hopefully with the passing years.

oh i definitely find 'erm' snide, absolutely. although as you've seen i do acknowledge that not everyone does. only you can say whether you were intending to be rude of course.

did you really misunderstand what i was trying to say with 'consultants and above'? really truly honestly? in which case i duly apologise for my lack of precision but nevertheless feel that a more mannerly way of seeking clarification would have been to ask me what i meant. erm... is not polite imo.

and yes, as i was just saying to aggiepanther, one of my favourite docs is the director of mat services for the whole area i live in. brain the size of a house, massive professional ego but LOVES people who ask questions. any colleagues (all underlings by def) have had the same attitude, as it's one he fosters). he certainly doesn't bristle that he knows more about things than someoen asking the question. plainly he does, so why would he be defensive?

the defensiveness is something i have observed MUCH more often in GPs than in hospitals, and as i posited this may stem from the luxury of specialisation. i have met one utter arsetwat of a hosp consultant though (now lining his pockets with a priviate IVF practice for which he is scarcely qualified) - he'll be first against the wall when my revolution comes.

well it wasn't meant snidely or rudely more in a puzzled way, as I said I thought your post insuinuated that GPs weren't consultants, which they are, they specialised in general medicine. we will have to agree to disagree on the meaing of erm.

Directors are no more qualified than consultants and in fact it could be argued they have moved into more a managerial role.

I guess I am lucky in that all the GPs I know would be happy to admit lack of knowledge in an area and to look something up, but as you said that should be how all doctors are whatever there specialisation.

nope, the guy i'm talking about is a very, very hands-on doctor as it happens, which is probably why i like him so very much. brain the size of a house also accommodates managerial stuff (and of course he almost never goes home). perhaps i'm just fortunate to be under the care of an excellent hospital run by an inspirational leader, who never fails to instruct his staff to act in an open manner.

and tbh most of the GPs i know (i'm talking about friends here, who i've known for decades) didn't go into it as a first love, which i think can build into a progressively chippy attitude in some of them. that 'i think i know more about it than you do'... well, yes. care to share that knowledge and have a discussion, rather than seek to close the conversation etc etc? so many HPs hate the internet etc and for me that is in truth less about not frightening people and more about the erosion of their power.

Tink was delivered by a director, he was on his way across the car park at 6pm and they called him back to see me. Having spent a month in hospital I saw him quite often, not seeing me as he wasn't my Dr but seeing other patients, he must have been on the ward everyday. I spoke to women who were his patients and they all said how good he was, he spoke to them like they were old friends and never had to look at notes for things. I wish he could be my doctor, he's obviously a high risk to have been in and out of the ward I was on, but must cover something different.