Drinking alcohol during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage, premature birth and your baby having a low birthweight. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorder or fetal alcohol syndrome, a severe, irreversible developmental condition. Truly specific research around drinking alcohol in very early pregnancy is pretty tricky. That’s because it would be unethical to put together a study and actually request that any segment of the pregnant population do something (drink alcohol) known to cause harm even some of the time. If you adopted a child or are providing foster care, you may not know if the biological mother drank alcohol while pregnant. International adoption from some countries may have a higher rate of alcohol use by pregnant mothers.
Alcohol and Pregnancy: Is ‘A Little Bit’ Safe?
On the contrary, drinking during the second and third trimesters can produce children with severe cognitive and behavioral problems in the absence of facial abnormalities. Experts advise that drinking any amount of alcohol while pregnant can pose a severe health risk to the fetus, causing developmental and social issues. Some doctors recommend that you completely avoid alcohol when you’re expecting; others say that occasional light drinking is unlikely to harm your baby. Alcohol use during pregnancy might affect one baby more than another. You could have one child who is born healthy and another child who is born with problems. There is no known safe amount of alcohol use during your pregnancy or when you are trying to get pregnant.
Pregnancy, drinking, and the COVID-19 pandemic
The CDC suggests that up to 1 standard drink per day is does drinking alcohol while pregnant kill the baby not known to harm the infant, especially if a person waits at least 2 hours before nursing. However, higher alcohol levels can interfere with the letdown reflex that ejects milk and may cause the child to have sleep issues. Studies indicate that FASD can have lifelong implications and is irreversible. However, people can avoid it by abstaining from alcohol during pregnancy.
How To Avoid Drinking in Early Pregnancy
Alcohol can cause problems for the baby throughout pregnancy, including before a person knows they are pregnant. Alcohol use in the first 3 months of pregnancy can cause the baby to have abnormal facial features. Growth and central nervous system problems (for example, low birthweight, behavioral problems) can occur from alcohol use anytime during pregnancy. The baby’s brain is developing throughout pregnancy and can be affected by exposure to alcohol at any time. They didn’t find a strong correlation between drinking early in pregnancy and an increased likelihood of these complications, so some people take this to mean it’s A-OK.
- Sadly, most infants with congenital heart defects die in the first year of life.
- We know drinking heavily during pregnancy is not safe for the baby.
- Click here to read more about alcohol’s effects during pregnancy and breastfeeding in our fact sheet.
- Every pregnancy starts out with a 3-5% chance of having a birth defect.
So following CDC and NHS guidelines of no alcohol at any point is the safest option and the one that we recommend. If you drank alcohol before you knew you were pregnant or before you knew that alcohol could harm your baby, stop drinking now. FASD is a term for a range of lifelong conditions that can occur in individuals who were exposed to alcohol before birth and often lead to disability. Another reason is that alcohol is just one of many factors that contribute to a baby’s development, she says. Genetic factors, the mother’s physical and mental health and environmental concerns must also be taken into account. Some pregnant women tell me they feel judged when they have a drink.
- While it is good to know that women did not use alcohol to deal with the stress of pandemic, the number of people consuming alcohol during pregnancy is concerning.
- When the data is compiled, these studies can help agencies monitor the effects of medications after they are made available.
- The baby’s brain is developing throughout pregnancy and can be affected by exposure to alcohol at any time.
- Growth and central nervous system problems (for example, low birthweight, behavioral problems) can occur from alcohol use anytime during pregnancy.
After delivery, their babies are compared to babies of moms who didn’t take the medication during pregnancy. When the data is compiled, these studies can help agencies monitor the effects of medications after they are made available. Past animal studies have suggested that alcohol consumption may influence gene expression in the embryo during early pregnancy by making changes to the epigenome, which regulates gene function. The researchers of this latest study wanted to investigate this further.