Should a Pregnant Woman Drink

Should a Pregnant Woman Drink?

How much, if any, should a woman drink during pregnancy? That's the issue being debated among health professionals.

The battle is between the UK Department of Health who says pregnant women can drink, but should not exceed one or two drinks a week. However, the British Medical Association says pregnant women should not drink at all.

What about you? Did you drink when you were pregnant? If you're not pregnant, how do you feel about this? I remember my mother telling me that she drank (a few drinks a month) and smoke during her entire pregnancy with me. And my two brothers. Ironically, she's a nurse. But, she now says that back then they did not know about the effects smoking and drinking can cause to babies.

O'Brien asks why this change if no new evidence has come to the fore. He explains that heavy alcohol intake during pregnancy brings with it a serious risk of fetal alcohol syndrome, a serious condition. However, no evidence exists that moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy has any long-term detrimental effects.

O'Brien says that telling women to abstain completely is paternalistic as the decision should be made by the mother herself.

The advice has changed because, as it is, the recommendation is ambiguous - at the same time people are uncertain about what a unit of alcohol is. "If we in the medical and midwifery professions have failed to communicate clearly to women the meaning of safe limits, then we need to put this right - not take the easy option (for us) and ban alcohol completely," writes O'Brien.

In 1981 the US Surgeon General advised complete avoidance of alcohol during pregnancy, explains O'Brien. However, the incidence of regular alcohol drinking during pregnancy in the USA rose from 0.9% in 1991 to 3.5% in 1999. If the advice is to abstain completely it becomes more difficult to collect data and know exactly what is going on. Women are less likely to admit to drinking during pregnancy if they know total abstinence is the only advised option.

Obviously, faced with the current evidence, many women will chose to abstain completely anyway. However, that choice should be freely made by each individual mother-to-be, concludes O'Brien.