Just been in chat having a discussion about drinking whilst pregnant. One of the reasons I'm going AF is to show the commitment to my husband I have to starting a family with him and being a sober mum.
I don't intend on drinking again but there seems to be a demonisation of any pregnant woman who drinks...it reminded me of this article that sets out to debunk a few common myths that may not be entirely true.
Zoe Williams: Being pregnant and receiving unscientific advice go hand in hand | Society | The Guardian
This is an interesting passage...
Alcohol
It is a shame, but there is very little research done on the prevailing attitudes to the drunk pregnant person, so we will have to rely on patched-together accounts from my mum and my own memory. Thirty years ago, it was not the done thing to get rolling drunk while pregnant, but it wasn't the done thing for non-pregnant women either. You could certainly drink moderately while pregnant, however. Ten years ago, an EastEnders storyline had Tiffany out on the razzle while she was up the duff, and Grant getting upset. EastEnders is a brilliant barometer for a certain sort of acceptability - it isn't an accurate portrait of anything, but it does indicate that in 1996, middle-class people definitely thought getting lashed up while with child was dangerous, and that it was probably something working-class people did. Still, a glass of wine a day was considered a decent way to proceed.
Five years ago, the government advice was as it was until last Thursday, one or two drinks once or twice a week, but it was taken as given that this was akin to government advice on regular drinking - that is, "14 units a week, are you kidding?", and nobody frowned upon the expectant mother having a drink a day.
For the past two years, however, the Daily Mail has been obsessively reporting surveys saying expectant mothers should not drink at all as there is no safe lower limit, and for the past year, this has been bread and butter for right-wing broadsheets too, plus the Observer.
A typical article about foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) will start like this: a case study will be presented, in which a child with the full range of symptoms is described. These include mental impairment, very low birthweight and subsequent growth restriction, and a distinctive phenotype (a small and misshapen head, widely spaced eyes, thin lips and a flat philtrum). Then it will describe the rapid growth in FASD, without pointing out that this correlates exactly with the rise in binge drinking. (Nobody is in any doubt that binge drinking is bad for foetal health. The question mark is over whether or not we should be abstaining completely.) Then it will say something like, in America, pregnant women are advised not to drink at all, and then a doctor - quite often it is Raja Mukherjee, consultant psychiatrist at the Surrey and Borders Partnership trust - will be quoted thus: "The uncertain level of individual risk to the developing foetus, coupled with the possibility of misinterpreting a health promotion message, mean that the only safe message in pregnancy is abstinence from alcohol." The piece, if it's in a quality newspaper, will then rather sheepishly deliver the information that the original case study was the child of a serious alcoholic, drinking upwards of a bottle of vodka a day. In a tabloid, this will be passed over.
Last week the government guidelines changed, and we are now told that abstinence is the only responsible choice, because, as the Guardian put it, "Ministers believe the change in guidance on alcohol is needed because too many women underestimate the risks to their baby, although there is no new scientific evidence."
All this despite the fact that a study in 2006 by the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology concluded that there was no convincing evidence of adverse effects of prenatal alcohol exposure at low to moderate levels, where moderate was defined as 10.5 units per week (but, the study author Dr Robert Fraser reminds us, not at one sitting, obviously).
Physiologically and sociologically, it just does not make sense that small amounts of alcohol are bad for you when pregnant. As Dr Eric Jauniaux, professor of obstetrics and foetal medicine at the Royal Free hospital in London, points out: "Alcohol is mainly metabolised by the liver, and only what's left will be met by the placenta. The amount that could reach the foetus in a glass of beer or a glass of wine is negligible. I would be much more concerned with breastfeeding and drinking." Jauniaux, incidentally, has been studying transfer through the placenta for the past 20 years, is one of the leading national experts on the matter and yet is never quoted in connection with any of the scare stories you read on alcohol and unborn babies. And sociologically, of course, Jauniaux reminds us: "How long have people been drinking wine or beer, thousands of years?"
Many of our mothers drank during pregnancy, and while this may not be very scientific, the lack of alcohol-related brain damage in our generation should militate against blank credulity when you are told not to touch a drop.
The obvious question now is, what is this enthusiasm for giving women advice that is strict to the point of being unscientific?
First, consider Mukherjee's perspective, which is not of foetal research but of neuroscience. He sees children with, for example, behavioural problems, poor concentration and hyperactivity disorder. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is a diagnosis of exclusion, in that once you have ruled out a raft of medical conditions whose current prevalence is largely unexplained, then you diagnose FASD. Research on the impact of ethanol on pregnant rats leads Mukherjee to believe that small levels of alcohol can be dangerous in humans, but obstetrics experts such as Robert Fraser at the National Perinatal Epidemology Unit have not been sufficiently impressed by the research to let it sway their conclusions. Anyway, Mukherjee maintains - I am paraphrasing, but not unfairly, I think - that, when you have this web of often indistinguishable conditions, ruinous to the lives of children and, of course, their parents, if there is even a possibility that alcohol could be causing any of it, then can't we at least stop these pregnant women drinking altogether so we can see what is going on?
You can see his frustration, but from the point of view of the pregnant woman, presented with no bona fide evidence for foetal harm at low drinking levels, the response is, of course, "Sod that."
Incidentally, in America, the great white hope of the teetotal pregnancy, oft cited by all the teetotal campaigners, the single greatest cause of foetal growth restriction is crack addiction. There has never been any controversy about this - crack addiction is strongly discouraged during pregnancy as it is illegal. And yet the message of abstinence has not worked.
Abstinence messages never work. Everybody knows they don't work, and I would go one further and say that social conservatives never intend them to work - they intend, rather, with their stringency, to effect a severance between the state and the individual. Don't come crying to us if it all goes wrong. We have already warned you to be perfect.
I don't intend on drinking again but there seems to be a demonisation of any pregnant woman who drinks...it reminded me of this article that sets out to debunk a few common myths that may not be entirely true.
Zoe Williams: Being pregnant and receiving unscientific advice go hand in hand | Society | The Guardian
This is an interesting passage...
Alcohol
It is a shame, but there is very little research done on the prevailing attitudes to the drunk pregnant person, so we will have to rely on patched-together accounts from my mum and my own memory. Thirty years ago, it was not the done thing to get rolling drunk while pregnant, but it wasn't the done thing for non-pregnant women either. You could certainly drink moderately while pregnant, however. Ten years ago, an EastEnders storyline had Tiffany out on the razzle while she was up the duff, and Grant getting upset. EastEnders is a brilliant barometer for a certain sort of acceptability - it isn't an accurate portrait of anything, but it does indicate that in 1996, middle-class people definitely thought getting lashed up while with child was dangerous, and that it was probably something working-class people did. Still, a glass of wine a day was considered a decent way to proceed.
Five years ago, the government advice was as it was until last Thursday, one or two drinks once or twice a week, but it was taken as given that this was akin to government advice on regular drinking - that is, "14 units a week, are you kidding?", and nobody frowned upon the expectant mother having a drink a day.
For the past two years, however, the Daily Mail has been obsessively reporting surveys saying expectant mothers should not drink at all as there is no safe lower limit, and for the past year, this has been bread and butter for right-wing broadsheets too, plus the Observer.
A typical article about foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) will start like this: a case study will be presented, in which a child with the full range of symptoms is described. These include mental impairment, very low birthweight and subsequent growth restriction, and a distinctive phenotype (a small and misshapen head, widely spaced eyes, thin lips and a flat philtrum). Then it will describe the rapid growth in FASD, without pointing out that this correlates exactly with the rise in binge drinking. (Nobody is in any doubt that binge drinking is bad for foetal health. The question mark is over whether or not we should be abstaining completely.) Then it will say something like, in America, pregnant women are advised not to drink at all, and then a doctor - quite often it is Raja Mukherjee, consultant psychiatrist at the Surrey and Borders Partnership trust - will be quoted thus: "The uncertain level of individual risk to the developing foetus, coupled with the possibility of misinterpreting a health promotion message, mean that the only safe message in pregnancy is abstinence from alcohol." The piece, if it's in a quality newspaper, will then rather sheepishly deliver the information that the original case study was the child of a serious alcoholic, drinking upwards of a bottle of vodka a day. In a tabloid, this will be passed over.
Last week the government guidelines changed, and we are now told that abstinence is the only responsible choice, because, as the Guardian put it, "Ministers believe the change in guidance on alcohol is needed because too many women underestimate the risks to their baby, although there is no new scientific evidence."
All this despite the fact that a study in 2006 by the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology concluded that there was no convincing evidence of adverse effects of prenatal alcohol exposure at low to moderate levels, where moderate was defined as 10.5 units per week (but, the study author Dr Robert Fraser reminds us, not at one sitting, obviously).
Physiologically and sociologically, it just does not make sense that small amounts of alcohol are bad for you when pregnant. As Dr Eric Jauniaux, professor of obstetrics and foetal medicine at the Royal Free hospital in London, points out: "Alcohol is mainly metabolised by the liver, and only what's left will be met by the placenta. The amount that could reach the foetus in a glass of beer or a glass of wine is negligible. I would be much more concerned with breastfeeding and drinking." Jauniaux, incidentally, has been studying transfer through the placenta for the past 20 years, is one of the leading national experts on the matter and yet is never quoted in connection with any of the scare stories you read on alcohol and unborn babies. And sociologically, of course, Jauniaux reminds us: "How long have people been drinking wine or beer, thousands of years?"
Many of our mothers drank during pregnancy, and while this may not be very scientific, the lack of alcohol-related brain damage in our generation should militate against blank credulity when you are told not to touch a drop.
The obvious question now is, what is this enthusiasm for giving women advice that is strict to the point of being unscientific?
First, consider Mukherjee's perspective, which is not of foetal research but of neuroscience. He sees children with, for example, behavioural problems, poor concentration and hyperactivity disorder. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is a diagnosis of exclusion, in that once you have ruled out a raft of medical conditions whose current prevalence is largely unexplained, then you diagnose FASD. Research on the impact of ethanol on pregnant rats leads Mukherjee to believe that small levels of alcohol can be dangerous in humans, but obstetrics experts such as Robert Fraser at the National Perinatal Epidemology Unit have not been sufficiently impressed by the research to let it sway their conclusions. Anyway, Mukherjee maintains - I am paraphrasing, but not unfairly, I think - that, when you have this web of often indistinguishable conditions, ruinous to the lives of children and, of course, their parents, if there is even a possibility that alcohol could be causing any of it, then can't we at least stop these pregnant women drinking altogether so we can see what is going on?
You can see his frustration, but from the point of view of the pregnant woman, presented with no bona fide evidence for foetal harm at low drinking levels, the response is, of course, "Sod that."
Incidentally, in America, the great white hope of the teetotal pregnancy, oft cited by all the teetotal campaigners, the single greatest cause of foetal growth restriction is crack addiction. There has never been any controversy about this - crack addiction is strongly discouraged during pregnancy as it is illegal. And yet the message of abstinence has not worked.
Abstinence messages never work. Everybody knows they don't work, and I would go one further and say that social conservatives never intend them to work - they intend, rather, with their stringency, to effect a severance between the state and the individual. Don't come crying to us if it all goes wrong. We have already warned you to be perfect.
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