Drinking alcohol during pregnancy may be harmful to your baby. It’s funny, how everyone agrees studies stating alcohol is bad for health and kills people, but makes weird statements about alcohol not being harmful to a baby.
Statistics are sad. Study shows problems, related to fetal exposure to alcohol (problems may vary from heavy to almost undetectable, though) occurring near 1% of all births in the US. Based on statistics, around 12% of women confess using alcohol during pregnancy, we can tell problems occur in around 1 – 8 per cent of cases. It all depends on how many alcohol is used and in which part of pregnancy it is used.
We don’t need a permission to drink alcohol. We need an excuse!
Giving up using alcohol is one of the hardest things to do when becoming pregnant. There’s a reason why alcohol is considered to be addictive. It has resulted in several discussions and even medical staff recommending having a glass of red wine every now and then to “release stress”. There are tons of reasons why alcohol is okay during pregnancy, however, they only serve a function of an excuse, not real evidence:
- One drink will not do any harm. Yes, I can agree to that. On occasional drink probably will not. Odds are quite low. But they are still there and why do you need them? If you want just one occasional drink, I assume you are not addicted. Then I don’t see an actual problem avoiding it. Having a one occasional drink is like new parents going on a theater. We beg our parents to watch after their grandchildren, go to a theater, have some fun, and for the rest of our lives (rest of our parenting career) we are dying to do it again. But we can’t and we know it. So, one drink – it probably won’t do harm (despite the fact scientists were not able to tell the amount when alcohol is considered to be harmless), but it’s avoidable.
- Red wine expands blood vessels. This must be resulting in lower blood pressure and higher amount of oxygen and nutrients fetus receives. I’ve checked it with a medical professional, and yes, there is logic in the argument, however, effect lasts for few hours. So, your baby gets extra oxygen for a couple of hours, complemented with toxins from alcohol. Dunno about you, but this does not sound like a nice deal to me.
- Alcohol is the least you must be concerned about. Exhaust gases, passive smoking, E numbers in food, pollution in drinking water and even sugar, which happens to occur in any product labeled as “no added sugar” product. With all those poisons we get exposed to every day, alcohol is a drop in the sea. We might discuss the size of the drop and the sea, but, do you need that drop? There are things we can avoid, and things we can’t, it’s not just about alcohol. Quit smoking? Excellent! Chose an organic food? Good! There’s no need to avoid drinking to still be a winner. But avoiding it, you are becoming even a bigger winner. Or smaller loser.
- Not fulfilling the need of drinking is greater damage than a glass of wine. I read this argument recently on a forum. It was from a woman stating her husband, sick, old bastard, prevents her from drinking since they found out about the pregnancy. The truth is, if not having alcohol is doing damage to her, she’s having a serious drinking problem, and it does not even matter anymore (except in how many persons she is killing) whether she’s pregnant or not.
- I have a friend who drinks a lot and who (Or, I know many alcoholics who) gave birth to a totally healthy baby. There are two things. The fact that the baby is breathing and has one head, does not mean he’s “totally health”. The damage may expose itself even several decades after the birth. Second, investigation of one case does not tell anything. Statistics above state that everything is fine in more cases than something goes wrong. It’s like jumping off a cliff. In most cases everything is fine, but it’s still a very dangerous activity.
Alcohol relaxes your body. Yes, one drink is relaxing, and I hope we are still talking about one drink. Problem is, it relaxes your body, but a fetus inside you is not that relaxed. The dose he gets is a bit (lot) higher than one drink. And it’s not relaxing at all. It’s damaging.- Many women are drinking a lot before they find out about the pregnancy. They still have healthy babies. If you agree to sentences above, you should check the statistics again. You can’t judge by one or few cases. Besides that, biggest problems occur because of alcohol usage in the first trimester.
By writing all of the above, I do not want to sound like a saint who never drinks alcohol and who says, “Alcohol is killing us and degrading the youth.” It sure is easier for me, as I’m a man. I can easily have a drink or few, and it won’t harm me (that’s what they say), or my baby. Unless I drink too much and my wife kicks my ass. But that’s a different story.
I just think there are some cases, like pregnancy, when you should not have alcohol, and if you have it, weigh the odds and take a responsible decision instead of weird excuses.
As a parent of a two year old girl, I have already accepted the fact kids are not grownup. Most of the time it feels natural to me that kids are kids, and I don’t expect a grownup behavior from them.
However, I would suggest slowing down a bit and trying a different approach. There is a plenty of time to buy everything (mostly about 8 months after you find out about pregnancy) and the best first steps would be finding out what can you get for free. In example, a bed, bath, clothes and lots of other stuff.
“We are pregnant… Or maybe not… At least the pregnancy test is saying we are!” I clearly remember the disbelief in pregnancy test results when expecting our baby.