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How Much is Too Much Drinking During Pregnancy?
Will a glass (or more) hurt?
Even though we still see stories of bartenders refusing to serve pregnant women, people are much less strident when it comes to insisting that nine months of abstinence from alcohol is the only way to conduct oneself during pregnancy. Plenty of doctors, midwives and women themselves say a glass of wine here and there won’t lead to fetal alcohol syndrome.
To the frustration of many, there’s no consensus on how many ounces how frequently “here and there” means.
Once she put severe morning sickness behind her, Blair Campbell, a San Francisco Bay area wine writer, wanted to drink, not just for pleasure but for work. Her OB-Gyn gave her clearance to have one glass — a month. A consultation with Dr. Google got her up to a couple of glasses a week with no negative alcohol effects.
In the meantime, she had her first encounter with anonymous online commenters, who couldn’t believe she’d want to drink and had zero sympathy for the fact that, in her job, she sort of needed to.
She eventually found a fellow wine enthusiast who was not only a doctor, not only a pregnant doctor, but a pregnant doctor knocking back wine. There, Campbell had her answer. A glass or so a day wasn’t likely to hurt the fetus. It’s what she wanted to hear and, finally, she did, but not before learning there’s simply no evidence that light to moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy has never been shown to be bad or without consequence. We simply don’t know.
So women in some cultures do it — a lot. Women in other cultures don’t, at all. What drinking during pregnancy comes down to is sort of an early lesson in parenting overall: lots of opinions, not a lot of facts. You’re left to your own judgment.
I always lost my taste for beer and wine during pregnancy, so drinks were never something that I missed in those nine-month stretches. However, on more than one occasion, my cranberry juice was mistaken for a vodka drink and, wow, could I feel the looks!
Once at a wine shop, I noticed the owner was pregnant. This was back a few years ago when people said “once in awhile wouldn’t hurt.” So she and I talked about drinking and pregnancy and whether for her it was hard to follow the “rules.” She said her doctor wasn’t opposed to her having wine every day.
“What, like a glass?” I asked, so curious.
“Yeah, a glass,” she said. “Or more.”
She sold the business and moved before I could ever see whether more than a glass per day was too much for her pregnancy. But, like any matter involving another person’s pregnancy, it really wasn’t any of my business.
How much did you, if any, drink during your pregnancies?
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10 Comments
[...] How Much is too Much Drinking During Pregnancy [...]
Similac Recall Lot Numbers and What to Do | Strollerderby commented on Sep 23 10 at 2:51 pmKate commented on Sep 22 10 at 2:32 pmI’ve allowed myself a unit of alcohol per month– general consensus seems to be that I’m not doing anything wrong. We’ll see, I guess.
goddess commented on Sep 22 10 at 2:54 pmI had about 2 glasses of wine ALTOGETHER – during each my pregnancies.
bob commented on Sep 22 10 at 2:55 pmDup.
Kristen commented on Sep 22 10 at 3:01 pmI had half a pint of stout every time I would have morning (anytime) sickness and then maybe a pint a week during all of my pregnancies. Perfectly healthy and smart babies came of all of them.
LBH commented on Sep 22 10 at 3:03 pmMy husband is a sommelier, so we have lots of wine around the house on a regular basis. With my doc’s blessing, I will usually drink about 1 or 2 glasses per week after the first trimester (I am 6mths along with #2). And when I say “glass” I mean, 6oz or less. No hard liquor. I did this with my first pregnancy as well. No probs, no issues, and quite frankly, a nice glass of pinot goes a long way to keeping my blood pressure down and my soul relaxed.
ann05 commented on Sep 22 10 at 10:51 pmOne 6 oz glass of wine a week. Seemed like a reasonable compromise.
pregnancy miracle commented on Sep 23 10 at 4:41 amI didn’t drink at all during my pregnancies, only because I wanted to be sure my baby had the best possible nutrition, and to me that didn’t include alcohol…I suppose it really comes down to it being a choice, you either do it or you don’t…and personally, I didn’t…
Anna R. commented on Jan 31 11 at 10:59 amMy midwife allowed me to have a few 6oz. glasses of red wine per week. Unfortunately the heartburn was so bad that I probably had 3 glasses my entire pregnancy.
I think that, in moderation, drinking during pregnancy isn’t a bad thing. Although this time around I’ll stick to my beloved specialty beers :P
Preggo & Educated commented on Sep 28 11 at 4:43 amNow, I’m not a sommelier, but come on, it can’t be necessary for your job to consume an entire glass of wine versus just taking a SIP or two to taste it. I do not understand how or why any mother would take the risk at all; there is no medical issue anywhere requiring alcohol consumption as a treatment, unless you are an alcoholic and the withdrawal symptoms are too dangerous for the baby. Just knowing there is a direct cause and effect between alcohol and horrible and completely preventable damage to one’s baby, takes away any possible social or personal gain for drinking while pregnant. While true it is not known how much alcohol causes FAS, isn’t that in itself enough to deter you? Sure, the likelihood I will get in a car accident and injure my baby, I still wear a seatbelt no matter how uncomfortable it is. It is not fair that men get to do whatever they want while we abstain from all the fun, but we get to create life and that is a responsibilty I take very seriously. I get that moat people turn out okay, but some severe alcoholics’ babies manage to make it out unscathed. Let’s all just guzzle up and get too wasted to worry about any of the stress. There are babies that are affected without being exposed to extreme amounts of alcohol. But hey, some other people’s babies turned out fine, why should I resist? If you cannot handle nine months without alcohol despite the fact that it could hurt your baby, maybe that should be examined.
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