is anyone having the odd glass of wine?

[daisystone]

When I found out I was pregnant I stopped drinking immediately and then the morning sickness kicked in and the thought of alcohol sent me running to the loo.

However, now I am over that (thank the Lord!!) and although I am still not drinking per se, I have had a glass of Champagne, two coronas and a glass of red wine spaced over about 11 weeks.

The NHS say that one or two units once or twice a week is acceptable but obviously a lot of people think it is a big no no anyway.

I am interested in what other people are doing and if they feel guilty if they have the odd glass of wine.

Redbird- I hear you.

My hospital bag currently contains

1x bottle Veuve Cliquot

Havent got round to the rest of it yet but at least I know I've got the essentials.

i did not had a drop since the moment of conception, luckily i didn't drink for a couple of months before i knew i was pregnant, lo is 2 months old and still not a drop as it gets into the milk.
my view: alcohol goes into the placenta, therefore the baby, if there is a chance it could be harmful, would you risk your child's health?. it is only a few months, after birth you can drink moderately while breastfeeding as far as you make sure you wait enough before feeding again.
it might not be probed that it's harmful, but i duidn't want to take the risk..

Whilst pregnant I had one or two units a week and loved every drop! What bugged me (and continues too now I'm breastfeeding) is people who will go to the bar and come back with a soft drink for you or say "I presume you will be driving". Grrr

My last day at work involved colleagues, gifts and cava. Someone said to me - "Soft drinks only for you" - I said "weekly unit of cava please!" I felt like I had to justify myself in public all the time - i.e. "This is my first drink in two weeks", in case they thought I was a lush! I was/am responsible and baby is fine!

I went the first 7 and a half months without anything. Then I had a couple of drinks and Christmas then nothing for the rest of the pregnancy. I am way too paranoid to dare to drink through pregnancy

I had one or two units a week in both pregnancies. Spritzers were great though - particularly when pregnant with DD last summer.

Now breastfeeding and have a glass several nights a week.

I had the odd glass yes and I enjoyed it.

What I really loved was discovering a low alcohol German beer that had full fat beer flavour - by Erdinger

I would have a small glass of a lovely bottle of wine, for the taste & enjoyment, but when it was hot over the summer what I really wanted was an ice cold beer. The Erdinger Weiss Beer is amazing - full of flavour & refreshment and just the tiniest amount of alcohol. They were delicious - and put all other so called low alcohol 'beers' to shame. They have nailed it where so may others have failed. And for that I was very grateful. (It's low in cals too)

I found out I was pregnant on my honeymoon - I was 10 weeks pregnant already. As I was on my honeymoon we were drinking more than usual - wine, beer, cocktails - as well as the drinking I was doing at home (glass of wine a night, parties etc). My DS is fine. I did panic a bit as I had been drinking quite a lot, but I can't do much after the fact! When I found out, I stuck to 2 to 3 cans of guiness a week, or 2 to 3 glasses of wine a week. I am 7 weeks pregnant now and was drinking before I found out (5 weeks) but that nauseousness kicked in last week and I haven't wanted anything, but when I do I'll do the same as last pregnancy.

I found that if i went to my local and had a half of lager i got sarky comments about drinking for 2 etc. but if i had a half of guinness everyone applauded me and told me it'd be doing us both good!

I wish I could but it gives me the worst heartburn!

Remember with DD the minute she arrived the heartburn disappeared until this pregnancy. I'm planning to have a large large glass of some posh rose champagne as soon as this one arrives safe and well!

I was horrified to see that they have started putting pictures of a pregnant woman on the back of beer bottles with a big red cross through it. Bloody nanny state!!

I am nearly 36 weeks pregnant and have really enjoyed the odd glass of fizz throughout my pregnancy and luckily haven't experienced any negativity about having a glass in public. I live in London though so people are used to seeing far worse behaviour than a preggers bird sipping a glass of cava.

What did really surprise me was that in a French restaurant on Friday, the FRENCH waitress told me I couldn't order a medium rare steak! DH and I had decided to share a cote de bouef and he's a culinary pleb who likes his well done and I asked the waitress if she could make it a bit more on the medium side and she said "but you can't have it like that when you are pregnant"! Cue me chewing my way through a steak that resembled the sole of a miner's shoe. So much for the French being all cool and laissez-faire about pregnancy.

Yeh, I drunk all through both pregnancies. Probably a glass of wine everyother night. Sometimes even two!!! Loved a shandy too. Until the heartburn really kicked in!
Two extremely healthy babys big and strong no health problems at all against all the other children I read about.

Cant see any harm at all. Pollution probably does more damage and all the chemicals that exist in daily life including all the cosmetics, household cleaners, airfreshners etc that get into our blood stream.

I never got any comments most of my friends are of the same opinion. Pregnancy is part of life not an illness, even didnt change my food diet.

Common sense prevails!

"I remember that stuff coming out from the Government about the no-drinking thing a couple of years ago. To be honest I think it was more to frighten alcoholic women into stopping- but then anyone with any sense would recognise that heavy drinking isn't a good idea."

That's not my understaning of the decision.

The no alcohol advice is an attempt to manage uncertainty.

We know that alcohol in certain amounts is a large risk factor for a variety of bad outcomes.

We can't think of any reason why alcohol would be beneficial for a pregnancy.

What we don't know is at what level of consumption is there any risk, or what that level of risk is.

The guidelines are designed to skirt underneath the clear toxic levels.

It's entirely possible that lower levels (the 1-2 units a week is a risk factor for problems.

But there is not enough information to be sure.

I had 1 -2 units (of wine with a meal) per week in the last two trimesters with both pregnancies and similar amounts when bf - always at the end of a feed when there would be a gap until the next one.

All of the GPs, Midwives etc who I've spoken to about this level of drinking all were of the opinion that it was fine and the guidelines changed to zero alcohol despite no new evidence showing that it was necessary.

I'll drink in public (for me that's usually at a restaurant) and sometimes think I've had a look from waiting staff but haven't had any comments from anyone.

Interesting to see from this straw poll that most women seem to be drinking roughly the same.

I cut down noticeably on drinking when TTC - went from regularly going over the 14 units a week guideline to sticking to it reasonably well most of the time to going under it. When I found out I was pg I dropped even lower in alcohol consumption - generally I easily stuck to the 7 units a week (though there was Christmas and New Year to deal with!).

Right now I am enjoying the Becks Blue so that I can have a beer-free beer in the hot weather, and I don't really feel I need or want anything much more. But if we go to the pub after work I do sometimes have a half of bitter - it's only one unit, not even once a week - and maybe once a week or so I might have a small glass of wine.

I don't feel worried about drinking in public given the small quantities - I'm bolshie enough to challenge anyone who challenges me about it. Overall I'm definitely not worried about having small quantities of alcohol while pg.

I have been having a half a guinness or a glass a wine every other Friday since about week 15 (now 27). In the last 2 weeks while I have been on holiday and eating out almost every night, I have had a glass of wine with dinner 8 nights out of 12. I was on holiday with my midwife friend and we were staying with a Spanish doctor and neither of them could see anything wrong with what I was doing. I am not trying to say that there is anything positive about it but I am sure that baby benefits slightly from the deeply relaxed, happy, unneurotic mummy that I was while away. I do however completely respect the decision to totally abstain made by other pregnant women. I just wish that I was quite so sure that they were respecting my decisions.

apologies ladies - posted on wrong thread - please ignore my last post!!! x

I have 2 DCs aged almost 3 and 18 months and both pregnancies I couldn't stomach much until the morning sickness eased at 18 weeks but after that I had 1-2 units a week or less. I did enjoy my guinness (still do) and an odd glass of wine. I'm not the biggest drinker and can go for weeks without anything.

I didn't feel guilty personally no, but did notice judgey looks from time to time if out and about.

I enjoyed the odd pint of Guinness but not until well into the 2nd trimester after the 20w scan. I did have a sip of champers at a wedding and a small glass of wine (which I didn't finish). Felt too guilty in first trimester to drink and didn't miss it. Missed tea & coffee though...

I think if you care enough to worry about how many units a week, you are not going to harm your baby. Foetal alcohol syndrome is not going to happen to a mum who has the odd glass of wine with food - it will be someone who drinks heavily (spirits) and often.

I've just discovered I'm expecting no 2 and expect to do the same as last time - a glass around once a week.

I actually rather resent the attitude to pregnant women and was interested by Bongo's link. We as a society infantalise pregnant women and I think it shows an underlying misogony in our culture - "Ooh, you silly woman. We kind of let you get on with things before, but you're looking after someone else now and we don't trust you to do it properly unless we give you idiot proof guidelines."

I also hate the "oooh,but it's safer not to take the risk" attitude. Fair enough for each woman to take her decision, but I think we are encouraged to take that view and complete strangers think they have the right to say it to you. What about crossing the road? Going to work in a stressful job? Would it be safer if I jacked in both of those for the duration? We are also encouraged during pregnancy to take the exact opposite view of risk as the rest of our lives - normally, you avoid something if you are aware it is risky and you balance that risk. In pregnancy the mantra seems to be that if it hasn't been 'proved' safe, you mustn't do it, and even thinking about it makes you selfish.

Sorry, off soap box now...

I had about one glass of wine a month during the last half of my two pregnancies. Two glasses a week when breastfeeding. Felt quite comfortable with that decision.

Lately I have been thinking about the fact that my babies depended entirely on the umbilical cord to nourish them and had no choice about what came down it and into their bodies, and have felt much less comfortable about it.

I'm with foureleven. I drank a little whilst pregnant - one or two pints of cider once a week when I felt well enough after the first tremester. Because I was drinking so little it actually made me very merry.

Now I'm breastfeeding I drink whatever i want. I have a doctor friend who is a toxicologist researcher and he says such a tiny amount gets into your breast milk that you can get as hammered as you want. For the first month after I gave birth I was drinking a bottle of wine a night in celebration. My rule of thumb is that I have to be sober enough to not drop her whilst feeding and my partner must be much more sober than I - so he is in charge of her. My DD is extremely good natured and happy - developing well.

with my first I couldn't stomach alcohol at all and throughout the pregnancy had probably 3 small glasses of champagne (i.e when toasting at a wedding or bday no other time). Interestingly I had a rough pregnancy, was really not well, blew up to the size of a small house and had to be induced due to hypertension and consequently the discovery of pre-eclampsia and ended up with a emcs. Not saying this is ANYTHING to do with not drinking at all but this time around I have been more relaxed and have occasionally been able to stomach some wine or lager shandy. My BP has remained consistent, have had a very relaxed pregancy and am hoping for it to continue. All the other signs showed up earlier than 35 weeks (which I currently am). Interestingly my cousin was ADVISED by the medical profession to have alcohol every night (and she is not a drinker at all - infact out of pregnancy is tee total!) so it is interesting to read what the govt guidelines are. Mind you since I last had a pregnancy there have been several changes about what you can and can't eat and drink so................I say watch this space.