Alcohol and pregnancy
November 13, 2008
If you follow newspaper stories, you will be confused as to what is right; whether drinking alcohol during pregnancy is safe for your baby. This is because at one time they say it is good, the next time they say it is unsafe. Yet another time they say it is safe during the first few weeks. What will you do in face of such confusion?
What the professionals say.
The Department of Health advises that when you are pregnant, you should avoid drinking alcohol completely.
For the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, pregnant women should not drink alcohol during the first term of pregnancy as this may lead to miscarriage. After that drinking not more than 1 or 2 units a week is safe. Drinking more than 7.5 units of alcohol which will mean getting drunk is dangerous at anytime during pregnancy. Your baby is a risk.
These views are seriously challenged by other reports which claim that there is no evidence that alcohol affects unborn babies negatively.
According to Claire Friars, midwife for a baby charity, drinking too much alcohol during pregnancy leads to foetal alcohol syndrome. This affects the baby mentally and the baby’s growth. This is usually associated with persistent heavy drinking.
But what is a unit of alcohol? Most people don’t know this. That is why the department of health says it categorically that there should be no alcohol during pregnancy. So it will be better to err on the side of caution and not drink at all.
There are only a few studies that say there are no risks in drinking alcohol during pregnancy. More research is needed to confirm this. Too much confusion and controversy.
The solution
According to Dr Gillian Leng, women should avoid drinking alcohol when they want to get pregnant and for the first term of pregnancy.
Even though there is no conclusive evidence as to low levels of alcohol being risky during pregnancy, the best thing to do is to remove all risks by not drinking at all. It is however the pregnant woman’s decision to stick to the advice or to ignore it. Alcohol is just on of the risk involved in pregnancy.
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