Alcohol and Pregnancy - The Effects of Alcohol During Pregnancy and Alcohol Pregnant
There is no doubt that women who consume large amounts of alcohol in pregnancy can damage their developing baby. On the other hand, small amounts of alcohol do not causes serious problems. It is not known what is the safe level of alcohol in pregnancy. Many women find that they lose the taste of alcohol in pregnancy but if you do enjoy the occasional glasses of wine then it is worth knowing that there is no good scientific evidence to prove conclusively that drinking less than two glasses of wine a day during pregnancy will cause a problem.
Remember - if you are trying to conceive and get pregnant then you may not know you have conceived until several weeks after conception, and continued heavy alcohol intake could harm your developing baby. In particular, avoid binge
drinking, where you take a large amount of alcohol over a relatively short period, as this results in very high levels of alcohol in body. If you generally have a
heavy intake of alcohol, it is worthwhile obtaining specialist advice and counselling before trying to get pregnant. In a study it is stated that drinking more than 15 glasses of wine or alcohol in a week can result in reduction in the baby's birth weight and drinking more than 20 glasses of alcohol and wine a week can be associated with intellectual impairment in the baby.
Pregnancy and Alcohol
During the first two months of pregnancy the developing baby appears to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of alcohol and it is advised to avoid alcohol in the starting months of pregnancy.
The only way to be absolutely certain that alcohol will not affect your developing baby in any way is to completely give it up while you are pregnant.
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome in Pregnancy
High consumption of alcohol in pregnancy can result into so called foetal alcohol syndrome. This condition is very rare but can affect between 1 in 300 pregnancies. The full syndrome affects only about a third of babies whose mothers drink around 3 bottles of one a day in pregnancy.
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome has several features and can affect the baby in several ways. Symptoms are - the baby will be small, there may be abnormalities in the brain and nervous system and also physical abnormalities like short nose, receding forehead and chin can occur.
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