Is Alcohol Safe During Pregnancy?

Conventional wisdom states that alcohol and pregnancy do not mix. You will be hard pressed to find any doctor willing to encourage you to drink alcoholic beverages while you’re pregnant. But while you may not find a doctor to say that you should bit drinking during pregnancy, you can find quite a few who will say you can have a sip or two. But the question still remains, is alcohol safe to drink while pregnant? Well let’s look at what the research says.

What Makes Alcohol Dangerous?

The biggest danger when drinking alcohol while pregnant is that the child is connected to the mother. He absorbs nutrients directly from her via the umbilical cord. If the baby is introduced to too much alcohol while pregnant, it can distort its mind or create other birth defects. Some of the more serious issues are:

• Stillbirth
• Miscarriage
• Intellectual disabilities
• Behavioral issues
• Small head size
• Shorter than average height
• Low body weight
• Poor coordination
• Hyperactive behavior
• Difficulty with attention
• Poor memory
• Difficulty in school
• Learning disabilities
• Speech and language delays
• Intellectual disability
• Low IQ
• Poor reasoning and judgment skills
• Sleep and sucking problems during infancy
• Vision problems
• Hearing problems
• Heart issues
• Kidney failure
• Bone health issues

How Much Alcohol Is Dangerous?

There is no known safe amount of alcohol to drink. Doctors can only approximate, by taking in age, weight, and duration of pregnancy in to account. It is safe to say that drinking in excess is most definitely dangerous. The best that you can do is to drink alcohol in the way that doctors recommend you should drink wine, i.e. one or two glasses a week at the most. The best choice though, considering that doctors just can’t come to an agreement is to abstain from alcohol while you’re pregnant and while you’re breastfeeding.