Consider this. A newborn, out of the womb, no longer a fetus, is given a bottle laced with a tablespoon of gin in it. Is this harmful? Same organism, just called a baby now instead of a fetus. Alcohol passes through the placenta, just as it passes through the bottle or into breast milk to the infant.</blockquote

This is what I meant when I said it has been covered. . I totally agree with you Imp that you should not drink while pregnant and you should certainly not give your baby alcohol. But this comment struck me as suggesting that anyone who would drink a single drink during pregnancy is the same as giving your infant alcohol in its bottle. That I don’t agree with. Again, I should have quoted what I had the problem with. Now, debate away. I love you all!

I’m sorry, Imp, I meant the debate about what is the difference between drinking when pregnant and exposing a fetus to alcocol, and giving a baby out of the womb alcohol. I could see Modine getting everyone riled again when it is not the same at all. I should have quoted her but it was early and I forgot.

No apology necessary, Nell But really? There’s not a lot of difference in giving your baby alcohol via placenta and giving your baby alcohol via nipple – breast or bottle. How is one less deliberate than the other?

I have to admit, I can see both sides to this debate. I had an obstetrician prescribe me small amounts of alcohol (very small) for third trimester preterm labor. At that point, he felt that the dangers of preterm birth outweighed the risks to my baby.

On the other hand, my sister has FAE and she struggles every day. Her mother didn’t drink much, and her mother didn’t drink especially early in pregnancy. And yet my sister has the same level of damage as if her mother had gone on wasted binges every weekend. Alcohol crosses the placenta just like it crosses breast milk or , for that matter, a bottle nipple. Perhaps not quite in the same concentration, but pretty close.

In the end, people have to make their own decisions about whether and how much they drink when pregnant. I’ve done it myself under a doctor’s okay – but I didn’t do it at all with my son, because I was concerned about the risks. By that time, my sister had been born and I had heard her mother say a hundred times “but I only had a couple of beers a couple of times, I thought it was okay”. Course, she also smoked pot some while pregnant, too. Some evidence shows that the combination can be very tough on some fetuses.

I don’t mean to write a book, but this is an issue close to my heart. If it takes pissing off a few people to save a kid from going through what my sister has, so be it.

What’s been covered? This case, or the FAS/FAE drinking during pregnancy debate? Because really I haven’t seen too much coverage on this site of either issue, so maybe I’m not understanding what you meant in your comment. Could you explain?

I’m sorry, Imp, I meant the debate about what is the difference between drinking when pregnant and exposing a fetus to alcocol, and giving a baby out of the womb alcohol. I could see Modine getting everyone riled again when it is not the same at all. I should have quoted her but it was early and I forgot.

Search around and you will find this has been covered several times. Pleases don’t start it up again.

What’s been covered? This case, or the FAS/FAE drinking during pregnancy debate? Because really I haven’t seen too much coverage on this site of either issue, so maybe I’m not understanding what you meant in your comment. Could you explain?

I have no problem with healthy debate, and it looks like everyone here was civil and articulate. We debate lots of less important things for a lot longer. But it looks like this thread was last commented on Friday morning, so I kind of figured the debate was already over As for the case itself, this woman needs a wake up call, and badly.

I do not however believe that one drink at nine months would do any damage AT ALL. At nine months, the baby’s organs and brain are essentially developed. Not much you can do to a baby at that time, short of a lobotomy. Ditto motor skills, IQ, and physical defects. It’s simply not gonna happen. The only way to harm a baby with alcohol at that point would be if you drank so much the baby died of alcohol poisoning, or were involved in a DUI. I do not believe, either, that a drink with dinner once or twice a month will do any damage.

Consider this. A newborn, out of the womb, no longer a fetus, is given a bottle laced with a tablespoon of gin in it. Is this harmful? Same organism, just called a baby now instead of a fetus. Alcohol passes through the placenta, just as it passes through the bottle or into breast milk to the infant.

If you read on this blog about a mother who gave her newborn a vodka-laced bottle you’d be outraged. What’s the difference here?

Having said that, for me it was just so much easier to avoid alcohol during pregnancy than to risk my baby’s health, I just didn’t see any reason to indulge.

Regarding this particular case, I think Nicole VanNeil is waaay past being able to make logical, rational, educated choices about drinking – pregnant or not.

I DID have a natural childbirth. Hence the midwife. I had my baby at home without any drugs. I mentioned Pitocin and an epidural because they are almost always a part of a woman’s birth experience in a hospital.

Hey, BBB! I’m pretty neutral on the subject of “the occasional drink” while preggers. I think that being FUBAR is a horrible thing to do to a baby – even once – and I personally never had a single drink during any of my pregnancies (I also had other health issues which would have made it much more dangerous for me to have done so). I do not however believe that one drink at nine months would do any damage AT ALL. At nine months, the baby’s organs and brain are essentially developed. Not much you can do to a baby at that time, short of a lobotomy. Ditto motor skills, IQ, and physical defects. It’s simply not gonna happen. The only way to harm a baby with alcohol at that point would be if you drank so much the baby died of alcohol poisoning, or were involved in a DUI. I do not believe, either, that a drink with dinner once or twice a month will do any damage. I do, however, believe that the woman in this article is a fucking moron at best, and a completely worthless POS drunk at worst. In either case, she doesn’t need to raise this baby. IMO.

But the reason I wanted to respond to you was because of another comment you made. You stated that pitocin and an epidural were “almost always a part of a woman’s birth experience in a hospital.” Maybe that used to be the case, but close to half of all hospital births now are drug free. I had all six of my kids completely natural, and they were all born in a hospital. I didn’t even have so much as a tylenol until after my children were born. And the only meds I had after the births was a motrin every 12 hours or so, to help with the swelling and cramping. I only have a couple of friends who had home births, but most of my friends did have ‘natural’ childbirth. Just sayin’….

I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I simply don’t believe that one beer at 42 weeks gestation creates the same risk as drinking to excess several times a week for 9 months, or even the same as drinking occasionally over that time period. I really would like to know the statistical odds of my baby being born with FAS as a result of my ingesting a single beer, well into my third trimester.

You are right. One drink will not cause FAS. There are other fetal alcohol disorders, too. My granddaughter only has fetal alcohol affects (FAE). However, you are among the overwhelming majority in the US who believe its okay to have an occasional drink–and you believe it because your medical professionals have told you it is okay.

Check out a few links if you have time:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fas/
http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/fas.html
http://www.nofas.org/FASDMythsPerpetuatedbyMediaCoverage.aspx

This last one is from the office of the Surgeon General:
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/pressreleases/sg02222005.html

In his release he states:
“We do not know what, if any, amount of alcohol is safe. But we do know that the risk of a baby being born with any of the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders increases with the amount of alcohol a pregnant woman drinks, as does the likely severity of the condition. And when a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, so does her baby. Therefore, it’s in the child’s best interest for a pregnant woman to simply not drink alcohol.”

I disagree about whether you were being alarmist, and I certainly don’t think that saying something like “Hope your relaxing drink was worth it” is merely a “sensible” way of getting your point across. And good Lord, how rude are you, anyway!? “Glad you had your drinks;” like I’m some raging alcoholic.

I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I simply don’t believe that one beer at 42 weeks gestation creates the same risk as drinking to excess several times a week for 9 months, or even the same as drinking occasionally over that time period. I really would like to know the statistical odds of my baby being born with FAS as a result of my ingesting a single beer, well into my third trimester.

Once again, there is a big difference between having a single beer and getting shit-faced. No one here is even REMOTELY advocating a mother-to-be getting drunk! I’m sorry to hear about your granddaughter’s problems, and believe me, I thank the fates every single day that my children were born healthy, and that they are both developmentally advanced and thriving. As for “one relaxing drink” destroying a child’s life? Well, that’s pretty a pretty damned alarmist statement, wouldn’t you say?

Check the statistics. And read the research. Research shows it isn’t just binge drinking that causes the problem. Problems have been traced to binge drinkers and also to social drinkers or even to an occasional drink to relax. Fetal alcohol problems are not consistent–some kids have worse cases than others, and some lucky ones seem to have no problems. But research has not yet uncovered how to determine which fetus is at risk. Interesting, though, that more women who are educated will drink during pregnancy and statistically have higher rates of FAE/FAS problems with their babies. This is because we assume we are not at risk. And we listen to the bad advice our doctors or mid-wives give.

I wasn’t aiming at you or anyone else–you only do what your medical professionals tell you to do. I’m not trying to be alarmist, just sensible and stating the truth. Alarmists stretch the truth to try to cause a reaction. Glad you had your drinks and are one of the lucky ones. By the way, try natural childbirth–it hurts a little but avoids any drugs at all.

That being said, to suggest that a single drink will cause a child to suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome is not just an exaggeration, it’s absurd. Women do more damage to their fetus by sitting in a nail shop for an hour twice a month. Drinking at all does increase risk and is not recommended, generally. However, the amount of which the risk increases is practically immeasurable if the mother is drinking less than once a week, which is what we’ve all given examples of.

For modine gulch to imply that the posters here would intentionally harm our own children by drinking is ridiculous. I normally don’t even drink at all! In my case, I was 2 weeks overdue and very stressed out, and if a SINGLE BEER was going to help me relax and let things begin naturally, I was more willing to give that a try than heading into a hospital to be drugged up and forced into labor. I’d rather expose my baby to the minimal amount of alcohol that a single beer would allow to enter the placenta than be put on Pitocin and adminstered an epidural, two things which are widely documented to potentially cause numerous complications during labor and delivery.

Once again, there is a big difference between having a single beer and getting shit-faced. No one here is even REMOTELY advocating a mother-to-be getting drunk! I’m sorry to hear about your granddaughter’s problems, and believe me, I thank the fates every single day that my children were born healthy, and that they are both developmentally advanced and thriving. As for “one relaxing drink” destroying a child’s life? Well, that’s pretty a pretty damned alarmist statement, wouldn’t you say?

So please, let’s aim your scare tactics and judgment in the right direction, okey doke? Why not start with the worthless excuses for mothers who go out and get trashed on a regular basis, rather than those of us who are caring parents who love our children with all of our hearts? Hope mom’s drink is worth it, indeed!