drinking advice during pregnancy...

[AliGrylls]

This is the first time I have started a thread in feminism but I have found something I feel really strongly about and I am sure if it is not a feminist issue it should be.

The drinking advice during pregnancy is currently not to drink at all. The reason for this is because when an audit was done in 2007 it was discovered that women were confused by the advice (until then it was accepted that a woman could drink 7 units of alcohol per week no more than 2 in one go).

The only good thing about this advice atm is that drinking whilst pregnant is not actually against the law in the UK. The other night DH and I were watching a documentary about the effects of drinking whilst pregnant and it was saying that in some states in the US not only is it against the law for pregnant women to drink but women are encouraged to not drink if they are in a "pre-pregnant state", ie, fertile but not pregnant.

I worry because I fear the current advice treats women like morons and surely a woman should have access to all information so that she can make an informed decision (people who are going to drink a lot will probably do it behind closed doors anyway).

Also, what starts in the US does usually ends up being over here and I can't help thinking the US way is a blatant infringement of the rights of the mother.

Am I right? What do other people think about this issue?

I agree, I think women lie about alchol drinking in pregnancy, precisely because of the stigma.

Which is extraordinarily counter-productive. Thirty years ago, there was no stigma and women told the truth about their alcohol drinking (unless they were alcoholics of course) and medical professionals were better informed about the levels of booze drinking.

I wonder if FAS has gone down overall due to the introduction of stigma in this area? I bet it hasn't.

I refuse to buy alcohol with that image of the pregnant woman and line struck through it.

I'm not pregnant, I just find it unbearably patronising.

Also agree that the figures on how much alcohol is being consumed are reliable. If my child had suspected FAS and they asked me how much I had drunk, and it was shedloads, I'd be revising my answer down to 2 units a week or similar before you could say "what's the number for social services".

Thus they have no idea really about any of it, i suspect.

What are the figures for FAS in communities where there are very high rates of alcoholism / drinking is acceptable when pg etc?

Have there been any studies like that?

I completely agree this is a feminist issue, and it's a particular bugbear of mine. I am convinced that as women gain more power in society, society looks for new ways to control them. For example, 40 years ago women didn't have the economic and workplace power that they do now, but they drank/ate freely in pregnancy. Now that we are more equal with men in most aspects of life, all of a sudden there are all these "rules" - don't eat this, don't drink this, that's too much caffeine, you must sleep on your back, you must sleep on your left side, etc etc etc. IMO these rules are far more about controlling women than they are about health outcomes for babies. And it is an incredibly slippery slope.

I say all of this as a midwife-to-be who is hoping to eventually do my dissertation on this exact topic of how society 'polices' pregnancy.

Rant over :)

Agree OP.

Also, it's been mentioned on MN many times before that one of the biggest risks to unborn children is domestic violence from their father to their mother. Yet no one is putting their time and energy behind a campaign to reduce what is a known risk, not a possible one.