You will be soo so fine....The bloody advice was changed 'casue it was too "complicated" and simpler to say NO. You have to look at what evidence is being used..... I've copied some info if you can be bothered to read it. Put it all down as it really bugs me that preg women are treated like morons and so many of us are restricted from a simple and totaly harmless pleasure by unesscary scare mongering...
The Department of Health did, until May 2007, issued guidelines that are similar to those of NICE; the news story has arisen out of the fact that the DoH has changed the guidelines, while NICE has not. As O?Brian notes in the BMJ, the new DoH advice does not rest on any new evidence, but merely on the reinterpretation of the risk associated with the already known evidence. Therefore this particular news story centres not so much on conflicting evidence supporting two different points of view, but on two different interpretations of the same evidence.
Regarding this existing evidence, the references are not cited in the Pregnancy Book, nor is it cited in the public leaflets on antenatal care published by NICE (2003 version), or indeed on the FAQ list of the NHS direct website (which, like the Department of Health, advises complete abstinence). Furthermore, these books and leaflets do not provide any details of the evidence that is being used to reach the conclusion. As an extreme example, the DoH merely states that
The UK's Chief Medical Officers advise that, as a general rule, pregnant women, or women trying to conceive should avoid drinking alcohol. If you do drink while you are pregnant, it is better to limit yourself to one standard unit of alcohol a day (roughly the equivalent of a small glass of wine, a half pint of beer, cider or lager, or a single measure of spirits).
(DoH 2007: 14).
The old NICE guidelines were slightly more descriptive of the effect of alcohol on the child:
Research shows that heavy or frequent drinking can seriously harm your baby?s development. When you drink, alcohol reaches your baby through the placenta. But your baby cannot process it as fast as you can, and is exposed to greater amounts of alcohol for longer than you are. And too much exposure to alcohol can seriously affect your baby?s development and can cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Children with this have restricted growth, heart defects, facial abnormalities and learning and behavioural disorders. The UK?s Chief Medical Officers advise that, as a general rule, pregnant women or women trying to conceive should avoid drinking alcohol. If you do choose to drink, to protect your baby you should not drink more than one or two ?units? of alcohol once or twice a week and should not get drunk.
(NICE, 2003a: 14)
The parallel NICE guidelines aimed at health professionals quotes the following referenced (in square brackets) evidence to support their advice that very moderate levels of drinking are safe:
Research evidence is consistent in finding no evidence of foetal harm among women who drink one or two units of alcohol per week.[106] There is also little or no evidence of harm in women drink up to ten units per week. However, binge drinking or otherwise heavy consumption of alcohol is associated with adverse baby outcomes such as low birthweight [107,108] and behavioural and intellectual difficulties later in life.[109] [Evidence level 3] Binge drinking is also associated with fetal alcohol syndrome and the incidence in Europe is reported to be 0.4 cases/1000