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How Dangerous Is Drinking While Pregnant?
Drinking while pregnant
Is having an occasional drink during pregnancy tantamount to playing Russian Roulette with your baby’s health? Or just a harmless relaxation?
Science really doesn’t know the answer to this one. A few recent studies have suggested kids whose mothers drank lightly – 1-2 drinks per week – do better than children whose mother’s abstained from alcohol entirely. Other research suggests even moerate amounts of alcohol do damage, but no one knows how much.
Worrying about all this leads to more stress during pregnancy, which in turn is bad for pregnant women. What’s a knocked up mama to do?
The American approach it to abstain completely, but as the Slate piece points out, that’s as much about controlling women’s behavior as it is about keeping our babies safe. More kids die in car accidents than are harmed by prenatal exposure to booze, but the warning on your wine bottle lists the risks of drinking while pregnant before those of drinking while driving.
I’ll never forget the day I walked into a liquor store to buy drinks for a party. Five months pregnant with my first child, I was craving beer and afraid to take even a sip from my husband’s microbrew. So I dawdled at the non-alcoholic beer section. A liquor store employee approached me and entreated me to pray to god for the strength to stay away from even non-alcoholic beer during my pregnancy. If I could not, he was certain my unborn child would pay a terrible price.
Seriously?
Like everyone else, I do not know what the safe level of alcohol consumption is for a pregnant woman. In the course of both pregnancies, I probably had no more than one or two drinks during the entire year. But: it’s clear to me that our cultural attitude says more about paternalistic control of women than it does about real safety concerns for babies.
Photo: Brett L.
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0 Comments
Laure68 commented on Oct 12 10 at 4:18 pmThat employee must have been completely nuts. What is wrong with non-alcoholic beer? The whole “pray to god” thing assumes you are a believer too. Jeez.
I was extremely sick throughout my pregnancy, and even the smell of alcohol made me want to puke, so this is one thing I didn’t have to think about too much. However, once in a while some nosy jerk would say something like “I hope you are not drinking alcohol, right?”, and it was always a woman. Usually someone who had kids. I could never figure out the motivation. (Maybe it is the idea that she abstained so everyone else has to also?)
Rosana commented on Oct 12 10 at 4:22 pmWhen I was pregnant I did not know how dangerous drinking was and I was not interested in finding out.
james dawson commented on Oct 13 10 at 1:50 amComments You are a pro alcohol arse hole!!
Molly commented on Oct 13 10 at 10:04 amI remember going to the liquor store when pregnant to buy beer for a barbecue I was hosting. I wasn’t drinking alcohol, but I was happy to go on an errand. I remember the owner being super-friendly, complimenting my selection, and carrying my purchases down the block to the car for me. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized how awesome he had been; as a result, I still love that liquor store.
bob commented on Oct 13 10 at 12:44 pm“More kids die in car accidents” doesn’t seem like a really great standard for deciding which unnecessary risks are okay. I’d rather know if pregnant drinking compares favorably with bird attacks or falling typewriters, because that’s more my standard.
Geof commented on Oct 13 10 at 6:34 pmI believe the rational ‘guess’ is that, if it is good for the mother’s health (as science has given evidence that a few drinks of wine a week is good for one’s health), then it is good for the child’s.
Rosana commented on Oct 14 10 at 8:48 amI don’t think that is how it works all the time Geof. Science has shown that adults bodies handle alcohol differently but can still tolerate it better than kids bodies, duh! However, it is uncertain how different fetuses’ bodies handle alcohol, to the point where only one drink can cause enough damage in some cases, so, why take the risk.
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