I know the official line is 'no alcohol' but is there a 'safe' limit?

[mosschops30]

I dont drink really when not pg, only when we go out which may be once or twice a month.

I have just been through the worst 4 weeks of my life and I am amazed that I have managed to not turn to fags, which would have been usual for me.
I gave up smoking the moment I found out I was pg, and havent drunk anything at all either.

But at funeral on friday I had one (small) glass of rose, and today I had 2 (small) glasses of wine at a friends house.
Is there a limit which is safe? We are on holiday next week and I would like the odd glass or a shandy or two.

Im not used to this, when pg with dd and ds there was no real limit set and I drunk guiness like it was going out of fashion!

Any advice would be great thanks

Unfortunately it is very hard to determine how much alcohol people drink. People are notorious about lying to their doctors about this, whether pg or not. Therefore I would generally take reports of light drinkers giving birth to babies with FAS with a pinch of salt.

I personally feel that a 175ml glass of wine twice a week would be very unlikely to cause an unborn child damage. (Home measures are normally more generous than this). Possibly if the mother had pre-existing liver problems, and so was not metabolising alcohol normally, or if her definition of a small glass of wine was half a bottle???

Jackeroo's post is interesting and valid. In the end, much of being a parent is about evaluating risk. My eldest is nearly 9, so I am all too aware of the risks that I must take to give her the skills to be safe as she approaches secondary school eg. road safety.

This changes daily doesn't it? At my booking appt, think that was in Nov (I'm 34 weeks now) my m/w said to do some research/read latest on internet etc as it changes so much that locally they're not saying one way or the other! Great help.

Anyway, I did do some delving but can't remember the pages now. I believe the general ideal was not to have more than 2 units once or twice a week.

I have had a lot to go through since finding out about this pregnancy and oddly didn't fancy a drink at all through this time, but in the last couple of months I've really fancied a glass of wine and have really enjoyed just a glass or two at the weekends (prob every other w/end).

I think if you're sensible then surely it can't hurt? Besides if it helps me sleep when I've got a bloomin awful cold and can't take lemsip etc then I'm for it

HTH

My personal policy is to follow the govt guidelines (before they were changed to absolutely no alcohol ).

I have 1 or 2 units maybe once or twice a week. So I stick to one small glass of wine on each occasion essentially. And only if I'm having food.

I like to have red, I can nurse a glass all night long, and it makes me feel less left out. I wouldn't want to risk any more than that though.

For those children with FAE and similar - I wonder if there are other factors which might also cause/contribute to their symptoms. For example poor maternal diet/lifestyle/drug use etc.

Can't remember drinking much, but not for moral reasons; mainly because it made me feel ill.

Lenin: do fluid levels affect amniotic fluid? (as someone who had very low levels and DS had to be delivered at 38 weeks)

Having started this thread, I would just like to clarify that
a) i dont regularly drink when not pg, so am not likely to do it when pg
b) it would be with food as a social thing, maybe a small glass with dinner, not a binge on alcohol

The odd glass of champagne won't go amiss

Mosschops, then the consensus is that you'll be fine. The last thing you need is more stuff to worry about!

Thanks Lenin! Explains a lot. (not that I will be having any more children!)

Message withdrawn

I drank a couple of glasses of red wine a week with DS, and the occasional glass of bubbly, wine or half a lager/Guinness with DD (probably no more than once a week or even less). The only pregnancy I didn't drink in ended in miscarriage.

Light drinking in pregnancy - as in non-pregnant life- isn't harmful.

You will never get a consensus because part of the problem is that you simply can't ethically perform a controlled study to make an accurate determination. It is not feasible to have various groups of pregnant women drink prescribed amounts of alcohol over a period of time to see where the cut off is before a problem becomes evident. Then too, some concerns that are attributed to the environment inutero are not detected until the child is of school age.

Some care providers are fine with the occasional drink, others are not....likely partly because if you say once in awhile is ok, who decides what once in awhile is...one a day...one a week? And who decides how much is ok? One glass....two? Why not three?

Go with what you are comfortable with.

In Italy the guidelines are totally different aren't they? From anecdotal evidence there is almost no mention of drinking it is assumed you will carry on having a small amount of wine with dinner but not getting plastered.

Wonder what they are in the rest of Europe?

The real root of the problem here is that as a nation we are incredibly bad at understanding risk and probability, and what they really imply for our daily lives. The government is also incredibly bad at communicating on risk and science (and I work for a govt dept!), and the media also don't understand risk and give us misleading headlines in order to sell papers. All in all it leaves us very uncertain and usually leads to the 'guidelines changing all the time so I won't bother listening' mindset. They rarely do as a matter of fact (take weaning ages, health advice on cancer etc, as examples) but headlines and our increased media consumption lead us to think they do.

In short the risk of very bad outcomes on two small glasses of wine a week is very, very, very small. But it is real, and it exists. Risk is relative (that's the whole point) and it's up to you whether you judge it a risk worth taking. You are at more risk of falling down the stairs in your own home, but because we deal with those types of risk every day we becomme immune to seeing them. On the other side, I have a friend who at 32 (so not 40+ by any means) had the triple test and the result was a one in three thousand plus risk level. Her daughter turned out to be that one.

And me? I did take the 'one or two glasses a week and some weeks none' approach. I'm grateful that the world didn't see fit to make me that one-in-whatever affected. I'd probably do the same again, yes.

another thing to take into consideration when looking at research is how did they know what quantity of alcohol a women had had? Did they do regular blood tests on all the people or did they go on what the women said they drink ? I ask because i have looked after people who are suffering from alcoholic liver disease and are literally fluorescent yellow ,who swear blind they dont really drink much and yet thier credit card statements show them buying 2 litres of spirits a day .When faced with a child with fae a mother is probably going to deny to health professionals and herself the true extent of her alcohol intake , ie one small glass a day equals a bottle

Go ahead and have your odd glass of wine, Mosschops, it will do no harm at all. Will probably help you relax a bit, and stress is known to be harmful to mother & baby.

I drank a glass of wine with a meal occasionally throughout both my pregnancies. Certainly no ill effects to my DCs and MWs in both pregnancies told me this was absolutely fine.

Mind you, that does not stop ignorant tw**ts giving you a hard time. When I was 7m with DD, was on holiday in France and we went out for a special meal to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I had one glass of red wine with the meal (the first I had had in weeks!) and one charming French lady commented loudly about how disgusting it was that I was drinking "in my condition"

She thought I couldn't understand French, daft bint!

Mind you, her concern for my unborn baby did not extend to stopping blowing her fag smoke all over me!

(On the French advice side note, I know that the common conception is that the Frech continue to drink during pregnancy and I'm sure many do, but the official advice is actually zero alcohol)

Sparkle - your post about risk made me think of a book I've just read by Gerd Gigerenzer - Reckoning with Risk. Its really opened my eyes to how risks are presented and how that influences the choices we make... and i'm a maths thicko so that is high praise!

I didn't drink any alcohol from 5 weeks (when I found out I was pg) until about 15 weeks. I then had a two week holiday when I drank a reasonable amount (small glass of wine every other night), then I didn't drink anything for most of the rest of the pregnancy apart from some red wine near the end. I would say all things in moderation (except maybe soft cheese etc which could make things go badly wrong). Before I knew I was pg I didn't drink to excess but did have my 30th birthday during that time, so had several glasses of champagne that evening!

sparkle - I am confused. Was your friend at risk of having a child with FAE because she drank once or twice a week or was her child at risk of Downs? I have never heard of any amount of alcohol having a quantified risk like that and certainly not one or two units a week.

To me if someone said "I only drank enough to make me tipsy" that would be a pretty good indication that they used to get absolutely plastered.

lalalongslegs - the latter, that was her risk of downs.

I remember the government guidelines before there was a total ban and the advice was 1.5-2 units per day max no more than 4 times a week (so approx 7 units per week). I remember when the guidelines changed in May 07, there was an awful lot said about people not knowing what a unit is and lying to the medical profession about the amount they drunk (how very kind that they assumed we were all brain dead).

When I found out I was pg I did my own research into what was safe. I have read various different things - some papers say any amount can cross the placenta and some say that it is only over 1.5 units that alcohol can cross. I am therefore pretty sure that having a small amount to drink a couple of times a week won't do any harm to baby.

I get so fed up with some of these government guidelines, particularly those relating to pregnancy, as they are obviously designed by someone who has nothing better to do with their day and is a man.

I feel that if one was to take all the advice to its logical conclusion potential mothers would not eat anything and would be fed by NG tube / IV drip for 9 months.