“Women who are pregnant or might be pregnant should be aware that there is no known safe level of alcohol that can be consumed at any time during pregnancy”, said study co-author Cheryl Tan, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
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The study, published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that from 2011 to 2013, one in ten pregnant women reported consuming alcohol in the past 30 days and one in 33 reported binge drinking. Alcohol passes from mother to fetus and experts advise women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant to just keep away from alcohol.
“We know that alcohol use during pregnancy can cause birth defects and developmental disabilities in babies, as well as an increased risk of other pregnancy problems, such as miscarriage, stillbirth, and prematurity”, said Coleen Boyle, Ph.D., director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, in a news release.
Non-married pregnant women were 4.6 times more likely to binge drink than married pregnant women, the study found. One long-term Danish study found that babies of moms who drank a little were more emotionally and behaviorally adjusted, because the moms were better-educated and had a generally healthier lifestyle-not, it bears saying, because of the alcohol.
Mitchell came from a family of alcoholics, and drank on the weekends during her pregnancies.
The last time the US surgeon general issued an advisory on the topic was in 2005, when Dr. Richard Carmona urged women who are or might be pregnant not to drink alcohol.
So, when you conceive, it is probably best to lock yourself in a padded box for nine months. All alcohol should be avoided.
“We can not say how much alcohol it would take to (cause) specific damage in a specific child because there are so many different variations in the world”.
The major concern with drinking during pregnancy is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a group of conditions that occur as a result in the future child due to the mother’s drinking during pregnancy. “It’s just not worth the risk”, she said.
They also said if people were thinking of getting pregnant, what’s called the 13 month pregnancy was a great idea.
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“Excessive alcohol use is a risk factor for a wide range of health and social problems including liver cirrhosis, certain cancers, depression, motor vehicle crashes, and violence”, Tan and colleagues wrote in the agency’s weekly report on death and disease. Interviewers contacted a random sample of pregnant women across the country and they received responses from 200,000 women between the ages of 18 and 44 who said they were pregnant. If so, they’re likely unable to stop drinking.
