Is the end of the careful pregnancy upon us? First we may have the go-ahead to eat some fish. Then we get the green light to wear funny t-shirts. And now a review of the literature on drinking and pregnancy indicates that binge drinking may not be as dire as we've been told. Here: "The results indicated that there was little substantive evidence that
binge drinking caused a range of problems, including miscarriage,
stillbirth, abnormal birthweight or birth defects, such as fetal
alcohol syndrome." Please note they aren't talking about consistent heavy drinking (that's still a big no-no) but rather occasions of having 5 or more alcoholic drinks. In other words, getting tore up every once in a while during pregnancy.
Oh, studies like this usually raise the hackles of many, so let's be sure to include the qualifiers. First, there may still be a possible link, though a small one, between binge drinking and impaired neurodevelopment. The researchers also suggest that the timing of the binge may play a part, and the first 13 weeks of pregnancy are more critical sober times than the remainder of the bun-cooking. (Of course the early weeks are also the time when women are least likely to know they are pregnant.)
Now, I'll confess that I don't drink at all, so the pregnancy sobriety wasn't an issue for me. But I am curious whether women did imbibe even to the point of "binging" during pregnancy. Is this something that goes on but nobody wants to talk about? And would this study change anyone's behavior?
