Light drinking won’t harm
October 8, 2010
A UK study published in the
Journal of epidemiology and
Community Health has called into
question the hard line stance
against light drinking when pregnant.
The study conducted over five
years, examines the relationship
between light drinking during
pregnancy and the risk of
socioemotional problems and
cognitive deficits when the children
hit five years of age.
18,500 mothers and children
were involved in the study, with
participants grouped according to
the mothers’ reported alcohol
consumption during pregnancy
including: those who never drank;
those who did not drink when
pregnant; light drinkers; moderate
drinkers and heavy/binge drinkers.
At three and five years of age
boys and girls in the study were
tested, with results showing kids
born to light drinkers had no
behavioural or mental impairments
and generally had higher test
scores that children born to mothers
who did not drink during pregnancy.
“At age 5 years cohort members
born to mothers who drank up to
1–2 drinks per week or per occasion
during pregnancy were not at
increased risk of clinically relevant
behavioural difficulties or cognitive
deficits compared with children of
mothers in the not-in-pregnancy
group,” said the study authors.
Conversely however children of
heavy and binge drinkers who
continued to drink through
pregnancy, scored the lowest in the
testing process.
The findings have been welcomed
by individual members of the The
Royal Australian and New Zealand
College of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists, who have for a
long time been concerned over the
perception brought about by
agencies which tote zero-tolerance
which have promoted the
perception within the community
that light drinking will irrevocably
damage a babies mental and
physical health.
“[The study] it is important
because there is abundant
anecdotal evidence that, quite
tragically, women are inappropriately
“advised” by family members and
sometimes doctors and other health
professionals, to opt for a
termination when they have had
occasional or light episodic
exposure to alcohol either before
they knew they were pregnant, or if
they have had the odd social drink
during early pregnancy,” said Ron
Batagol, Pharmacy and Obstetric
Drug Information Consultant.
“Since the prevailing studies
relating to low level alcohol
exposure in pregnancy, which
Advisory Bodies like the NHMRC
rely upon, are based on quite
shonky and unreliable data from
poorly-designed studies, one can
but fervently hope, (probably in
vain), that this latest Study may
finally give impetus to the NHMRC
to stop being so stubborn and to
take the step of modifying its
recommendations, to reassure
pregnant women that inadvertent
or low-level occasional social
drinking by a pregnant woman
does not pose a teratogenic risk to
her fetus,” he added.
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