So after the heartbeat and pap smear excitment, everyone went out for St. Patricks day, which brings me to the secondary topic of this post: NOT DRINKING WHILE PREGNANT. No, it's not that bad to not drink, but it's not that awesome either. Not to mention, that I automatically become the designated driver for a bunch of people that look like this:
I can do without having tequila shots and $3 unlimited Long Island ice teas.... but, I like having wine with dinner and the occasional mug of green beer, dammit. Is that so bad? (It turns out, it really isn't that bad, more on that in a moment.) But the doctors, and everyone else that you could possibly ask for that matter, tell you that pregnant ladies shouldn't drink alcohol at all. And this is exactly what I have been doing. This advice is actually a relatively new extreme, though. Up until the 70's, women were advised to "limit" their alcohol intake. At about this time a strong relationship between chronic binge-drinking and fetal alcohol syndrome was established. This is a fact, being an alcoholic while pregnant is really bad for you and your baby. But the effects of light to moderate drinking during pregnancy haven't been studied nearly as much. Nevertheless, there is information to be found on the topic. In a study by Bakker et al. published in the June 2010 issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology, a large population of 7333 pregnant women in the Netherlands was studied. They examined the women in early, mid and late pregnancy and quizzed them on their alcohol use and measured the growth of their fetus. The categories of alcohol use were none, less than 1 drink per week, 1-3 drinks per week, 4-6 drinks per week, 1 drink per day, and 2-3 drinks per day. 37% of the women drank during their pregnancy, the majority of which had 3 drinks or less a week. The researchers found no connection between any amount of alcohol use and differences in fetal growth or the occurence of gross abnormalities. This study is limited in that the stats are tilted in the direction of very light drinking during pregnancy, because so few women had 1 or 2 drinks each day. Also, this study did not look at the babies after they were born. But what we can conclude from this study is that have 3 drinks or less per week will not affect fetal growth.
In another study that I find a little more interesting, actually, they looked at about 11,000 5-year old children in the UK and correlate their socioemotional and cognitive scores with the self-reported drinking of the mother while she was pregnant (Kelly et al, 2010, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health). The groups were kids born to mothers that never drank, didn't drink while pregnant, light, moderate, and heavy/binge. They found that the light-drinker kids had a reduced risk for high total difficulties compared with kids born to Moms that did not drink while pregnant. Furthermore, the light-drinker kids had higher cognitive scores; these kids had better verbal scores, better pattern reconstruction and picture matching skills than no-drinking-while pregnant kids. So lets get this straight, this study shows that light drinking might actually make your kid smarter and more well-adjusted? Holy Crap! Get me some red wine!! Of course, this doesn't show whether the light drinking actually caused the smarter child. It's possible that the women that had a few drinks per week were just less stressed out, or maybe they are just more laid-back individuals to begin with. Maybe light-drinkers while pregnant just tend to be better educated in this particular study? This would explain the slightly smarter babies. Regardless, this study indicates that having less than 3 drinks per week while you are pregnant will have no negative effect on the cognitive and emotional qualities of your child, at least by the time the kid is 5 years old.
So, why are we all dutifully abstaining? and why are the doctors still telling women not to drink at all while pregnant? and why aren't any of these studies done in the United States? As for the last question, I think that this is because the NIH just doesn't feel that this is an important enough question to study. It's easier to just tell women not to drink at all then to do expensive, large population, controlled clinical studies. I'm sure the doctors are afraid of being sued for letting anyone in on this knowledge. Also, and more importantly, there seems to be a puritanical hysteria surrounding the whole issue. French women would laught at us. I know the argument well, "If there is even the tiniest chance that it might harm your baby, why take the risk? Is it really that bad to just not drink for 9 months?". My reply to this argument is as follows: What if there is a 100% chance that having 1-2 drinks a week will have NO negative effects on your baby? What if there is even a tiny chance that abstaining from alcohol will make your baby turn out ever so slightly dumber than it could have been? And you know what, it is "that bad" to not drink, especially when the decision is based on fear-based irrationality rather than any sort of evidence.
Well.... now that I'm all worked up... I'm going to go do some prenatal yoga and eat strawberry ice-cream. And maybe, I'll have a small glass of champagne on our anniversary.
Wow. I really don't think anyone would have a problem with you drinking a beer at St Pat's Day or tasting chanpagne on your anniversary. Certainly the stress you are feeling is more damaging. But then you know about cortisols, adrenal glands and inflamation, no doubt. Alcohol is linked to learning disorders. So, if you have a learning disorder due to my glass of wine now and then I am ok with that. You learned to cope with it. The conundrum: a few (no stat) babies are born with disorders we won't ever identify cause. There is,then, the dilemma:I quit smoking & all pharmaceutical drugs while pregnant. I drank an occasional glass of wine. My Mom smoked and I had asthma as a baby. Ariel had asthma and I didn't smoke. Grandmom didn't drink at all. As long as you know you will not inflict blame on yourself then have an occasional drink. Moderation is the key, discuss with Chris so you are of a 'like' mind. Remember, stress is a toxic.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have a learning disorder, Mom. I'm pretty sure that anything that might be wrong with me occurred after I was born. But that's an entirely different post. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think a glass of wine, or 2, a week is acceptable. We get very hyped up about what harm alcohol can do to the baby. There are factors, such as stress that are not measured. Use common sense and baby Corona will be fine.
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