Should We Drink To This?
Drinking While Pregnant http://www.flickr.com/photos/richdelux/3984997045
Two recent findings have turned the tables for habit-forming drinkers. Recent coffee researches, as we have discussed in this column, have validated numerous health benefits and improvements in well-being of coffee drinkers. The latest to turn the table in the drinking public and health community is with alcoholic beverage consumption during pregnancy.
According to a new study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the June 20 issue of BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, low and moderate drinking during early pregnancy has no adverse neuropsychological effect by five years of age.
This study published by Dr. Ulrik Schiøler Kesmodel followed a sample size of 100,000 women and their children who participated in the Danish National Birth Cohor. After 5 years, a total of 1628 children were tested for attention, general intelligence and executive function. The mothers were also tested for intelligence.
It is a common belief and widely accepted practice to advise women to avoid vices that include smoking and drug use. The research revealed that children born to mothers who have been drinking 5 or more drinks on a limited number of times during early pregnancy have comparable intelligence, attention and executive function as those who abstained.
This limited consumption pertains to intake between 1 and 8 units of alcohol per week. This comes as a welcome respite for mothers who have been habitually drinking or those who took some shots without realizing earlier that they are actually pregnant. Guilt feelings that come with breaking such long-held precautionary beliefs would be allayed by this result.
The study however points out that consumption of 9 or more units of alcohol per week resulted in children that appeared to have slightly lower IQ levels and poorer attention than children delivered by mothers who abstained from alcohol during pregnancy.
In the United Kingdom, a unit of alcohol is equivalent to 10 milliliters. This can be comparable to a small glass of wine or half a pint of beer (284 ml).
Should we drink to this fact then? I believe that the prevailing wisdom of abstinence is still wiser and apt for the benefit of the mother and child.
The burden for mothers is not just the weight in their belly that they carry for nine months. The emotional upheaval that comes with the uncertainty of how life would progress beyond the womb places a huge burden for the mother from conception onwards.
Some women cannot just cut the habit within a few months. Some women have unplanned pregnancies after a night of partying and drinking. With this research, the issues that pregnant women have to face are now lighter.
According to a new study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the June 20 issue of BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, low and moderate drinking during early pregnancy has no adverse neuropsychological effect by five years of age.
This study published by Dr. Ulrik Schiøler Kesmodel followed a sample size of 100,000 women and their children who participated in the Danish National Birth Cohor. After 5 years, a total of 1628 children were tested for attention, general intelligence and executive function. The mothers were also tested for intelligence.
It is a common belief and widely accepted practice to advise women to avoid vices that include smoking and drug use. The research revealed that children born to mothers who have been drinking 5 or more drinks on a limited number of times during early pregnancy have comparable intelligence, attention and executive function as those who abstained.
This limited consumption pertains to intake between 1 and 8 units of alcohol per week. This comes as a welcome respite for mothers who have been habitually drinking or those who took some shots without realizing earlier that they are actually pregnant. Guilt feelings that come with breaking such long-held precautionary beliefs would be allayed by this result.
The study however points out that consumption of 9 or more units of alcohol per week resulted in children that appeared to have slightly lower IQ levels and poorer attention than children delivered by mothers who abstained from alcohol during pregnancy.
In the United Kingdom, a unit of alcohol is equivalent to 10 milliliters. This can be comparable to a small glass of wine or half a pint of beer (284 ml).
Should we drink to this fact then? I believe that the prevailing wisdom of abstinence is still wiser and apt for the benefit of the mother and child.
The burden for mothers is not just the weight in their belly that they carry for nine months. The emotional upheaval that comes with the uncertainty of how life would progress beyond the womb places a huge burden for the mother from conception onwards.
Some women cannot just cut the habit within a few months. Some women have unplanned pregnancies after a night of partying and drinking. With this research, the issues that pregnant women have to face are now lighter.
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