The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the United Kingdom came out this week with an astonishing pronouncement that pregnant women past their 12th week can safely drink “1.5 units” of alcohol per day — the equivalent of a single, small glass of wine.
This, in my opinion, is bullshit.
No one loves wine more than I. And I’m a great promoter — as many of you know — of moderate drinking for one’s health. Yet, there are two groups of people to whom I would never advocate a drop: alcoholics and pregnant women. So far as I’m concerned, it’s a simple matter of the risk/benefit ratio. For someone with a drinking problem, the antioxidant benefit isn’t worth the risk of ending up on a highway overpass, holding a sign that says “God bless.”
And for pregnant women? Consider this: The single only way to produce a baby with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) — a constellation of disorders that includes mental retardation and various birth defects — is to drink while pregnant. So as far as I’m concerned, in this case the risks outweigh the potential benefits by about a million percent.
I have a son, now 19, with profound autism. I didn’t drink while pregnant; I was, in fact, barely of legal drinking age. But I did consume fish and tap water, take Tylenol for headaches, and live downwind of a plastics plant. If someone were to tell me that avoiding salmon, bathing in pure Evian, suffering through killer migraines, moving to another state, or — for that matter — having every hair on my body singed off with a Zippo lighter would prevent my son’s having to go through the muddy chaos that is his life today. . . .I would do it in a second. Give up alcohol in order to save a kid even the off chance of impairment? I can’t conceive why any woman would do anything but.
But in this case, it’s the scientists I just don’t understand.
The NICE announcement seems like an unnecessary invitation for trouble and heartbreak. Pregnant women are routinely under stress. They’re sick, breathless, exhausted, worried, and often in conflict with their partners. One glass of wine may or may not be safe, but take a woman who’s under severe stress, lower her inhibitions with a little bit of alcohol, and what are the chances when someone refills her glass, she’ll drink that, too?
For what it’s worth, the UK Department of Health agrees with me. They came out against the NICE recommendation, saying it is unsafe for pregnant women to consume alcohol. Their advice remains what is has been for years, that women abstain completely from beer, spirits, and wine for the duration of their pregnancies. And take it from this mother of three: nine months may seem like a long dry spell. But there will be many years ahead for drinking — and many opportunities. When you’re waiting up for a 17-year-old to come home from a late-night party, for instance. Around two a.m., that’s a perfect time.
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