General Chat

A good point, tanianz. It takes long-term studies for the real extent of a problem to be understood sometimes, and this research just hasn't been underway for long enough for there to be a detailed big picture.

I never drank at all when I was pregnant with both my kids (1995 / 1999 ) (I am a non smoker)

I remember sitting at the Xmas dinner table about four months gone , with a glass of lemonade to go with my meal. My aunt asked me why I couldn't have just a small glass & I said because It wasn't necessary to me having a good time, auntie still argued but i stuck to my guns. I wasn't going to even risk anything going wrong. Needless to say, the lemonade and I got on just fine and I did have a good time regardless.

With both my pregnancies I listened to the latest advice and followed that as I wanted to do my best for my babies. My wants came last each time.

There is always advice which changes from year to year, from pregnancy to pregnancy. One time they say not to drink at all, then they say a glass of this or that wont hurt, (the same goes for the peanut warnings) then they change their minds again which can be confusing .Many women ignore this advice and go along with their female older generations advice as it "worked fine for them and baby turned out OK etc "

Normally the midwife will advise the mother to be on the latest do's and donts at the first appointment. so it really is down to the mother what decision she makes, but i dont like seeing pregnant women drinking and even more so smoking :o((

I would have thought the very odd small glass of alcohol in later months wouldnt make too much impact on the pregnancy (eg a small glass of wine at Xmas ) I think its regular drinking which is more liable to cause damage. Lets face it, how many people go out drinking before they realise they are pregnant ? and those are the vital days and weeks of baby's development.

Also nowadays how do we know someone pregnant sat at a table drinking is not drinking a low / non alcohol version of a drink ??

Many drinks look the same in a glass , unless we have seen the bottle it came out of.

I often wonder about the new born babies,born to mothers that smoke,
as I understand it the baby IS,, what the mother digests/ingests......
If I asked a smoker how they felt when they were in the throes of packing up smoking,( and I know mine, because i went cold turkey) what must it be like for a new born suddenly deprived of his/her daily nicotine fixes?
would it account for a " Ratty" unhappy child that appears to be well looked after? ie well fed clean dry?

but going cold turkey....????

Bob

my daughter when pregnant wouldn't even take a pill for a headache......

No-one has mentioned the effect exhaust fumes can have on the foetus.
After all, cigarettes contain miniscule amounts of the carcenogens in exhaust fumes, but no-one seems particularly bothered by it!!
Maybe, for safety's sake, pregnant women shouldn't go near bus stations or the centre of congested towns.

Maybe for safetys sake poregnant women should live in a vacuum for the length of their pregnancy.

think if somebody told me these days I was expecting ( after picking me up of the floor ) I might do the right and wrong stuff,

IF I had been pregnant yrs ago yea I would have had the odd shandy and even spliff after all a lot of you here today didn't come to any harm ........or did you ?

Maybe for civility's sake people should not talk nonsense.

The effect of cigarette smoke (and equivalents) is known to be cumulative. The potential effect of any particular alcoholic beverage at any particular stage of pregnancy (yes, early stages are likely the most problematic) is really, simply, just not known.

Oh well. My best friend smoked throughout her third pregnancy and delivered twins weighing a total of over 16 pounds. I guess smoking is good for fetuses.


If a risk CAN BE AVOIDED, why in * would someone not attempt to avoid it? And why would anyone advise that someone else not bother attempting to avoid it?

One shakes one's head, really one does.

At the risk of sounding very stupid-I was VERY pregnant when I found out (he'd tucked under my rib cage & various other things didnt change).So I drank & smoked the whole time.
At 6' 2" & at Uni I don't think he suffered & his birthweight was normal.
My mate who had a baby at the same time had a can of Murphys every night-'cause it was supposed to be good & smoked & my Mum had a Mackeson or two when expecting all of us & smoked.

Would I do it differently now-I honestly don't know.There will always be something "bad" but I don't think the majority of Mum's set out to damage the life inside them with their lifestyle,there will always be "something".

lol Cat :-) It maybe not such a bad thing if it means getting away from it all. I should imagine pregnant women need a lot of support, stress during pregnancy can cause complications and should be avoided.

For years I had the 'Ostermilk' advice book that my mum was handed when she was pregnant with me...it encouraged the drinking of stout, the eating of raw liver.. and also smoking ( better the mother smokes than gets 'stressed' ) ...I decided never to have a baby lol if I had to do the above!

when I was pregnant I wasn't allowed to have hay fever tablets,( the first time I had ever had hay fever , and have had it ever since ) but no one said I couldn't have the occasional glass of something.

It is just common sense surely? and if someone hasn't got that, then all the nagging in the world will make no difference.

No, Rose, it isn't "just" common sense.

The thing is, with nonsense and uninformed opinion like we see in this thread circulated, how could it be surprising if many woman DON'T know what current research says?

It's information, really, rather than sense. Once one has information, one can decide what to do with it. Ignore it completely, if one likes.

But it's only too obvious how many people don't have information, and pregnant women are as deserving of information as anyone else! If not more so.

lol Janey, quite right...

If anyone doesn't know the 'current thinking' on the subject from the health services in this country ( worldwide) may I recommend a quick google :) a world of information at one's fingertips !

...... and after all the arguing, informed opinion and debate it is still down to the individual to make their own decisions....at least we can still be thankful we are allowed to do that.... we are aren't we ?

Jean.

Yes Jean a voice of reasoning.

It's something that may have been more "in the news" in Canada than in England.

First Nations communities, we all know, have alcohol problems. Together with the problems that come from families ripped apart in the 50s and 60s, with children forcibly placed in residential schools and denied contact with their families, community and culture, and often abused. They had no parents, they didn't learn how to be parents, so the families and communities that came after have been horribly dysfunctional, and alcohol plays a big role.

Kids with fetal alcohol syndrome have delayed development, and one common characteristic is poor impulse control ... and so they are much more likely to commit crimes, and end up behind bars ... just a miserable, miserable life, and why anyone would want to take that chance, minuscule as it might be for any particular drink she might have, I just dunno. Nobody *needs* to drink anytime, and certainly not during pregnancy. Of course, an alcoholic "needs" to drink, but alcoholics are a whole nother question -- although it sounds like the person described in the opening post may well be one. They can rationalize for England, alcoholics can.


An article about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome / Fetal Alcohol Effects in First Nations communities in Canada.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fniah-spnia/famil/preg-gros/intro-eng.php

"FAS and FAE are birth defects caused by the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. FAS/FAE is a nation-wide health concern, and it does not discriminate on the basis of race, socioeconomic status, or sex. Because of lack of recognition and diagnosis, it is difficult to be certain how many individuals have FAS/FAE. About one baby out of 500 to 3000 annual live births will have FAS; this is called the incidence of FAS (how often a problem occurs annually).

The incidence of FAS is greater than the incidence of either Down's Syndrome or Spina Bifida. The incidence of FAE is 5 to 10 times higher than the incidence of FAS.

This means that, each year in Canada, somewhere between 123 - 740 babies are born with FAS, and around 1000 babies are born with FAE (based on 370,000 births per year). Prevalence means the number of people in a population that have a problem at a specific point in time. The prevalence of FAS/FAE in high-risk populations, including First Nations and Inuit communities, may be as high as 1 in 5."


Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/Fetal Alcohol Effects

I wonder who here might have said it wasn't down to anyone to make his/her own decisions.

Fer sure it wasn't me!

If someone saw me about to cross a street and realized that I hadn't seen the bus hurtling toward me, I like to think s/he would say "watch out!!" and not just stand there and mutter "oh well, it's her choice" ...

Janey... I never for one moment said it was you....but once everything dire has been pointed out it is still up to the individual to weigh up the pros and cons and make their own decision.... and I am just thankful we still have that option.

janey I will say each to there own,
Maybe be i don't agree but at least i understand.

may I ask how many children do you have ? I bet they like all are a blessing to you

Thanks for your interest, Uzzi.

***disclaimer**

Every word I have written on this thread is my own genuine opinion.

I have NOT used it to score points over something I had no bl**dy idea about.

There is no evidence this thread WAS put up as a *dig* at Catherine but Fee you should know you were accused of putting this up as a reaction to a pic at the Liverpool meet.

Just so you know. xx