Saturday, June 23, 2012

A Few Drinks While Pregnant May Be OK

When a woman drinks heavily during pregnancy, it can cause profound damage to her unborn child.

Nobody knows how much alcohol, if any, is safe, so the U.S. surgeon general and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise women to abstain from drinking throughout pregnancy to avoid physical and mental birth defects.

 But here and elsewhere, even conscientious pregnant women have been known to have an occasional beer or glass of wine while carrying a child. How risky is that?

Research funded by the CDC and conducted in Denmark is shedding some light on the question, though there's no definitive answer just yet. Still, the results suggest that light drinking (one to four drinks a week) and even moderate imbibing (five to eight drinks) may be OK. Even occasional binge drinking (five or more drinks in a single session) didn't appear to be tied to developmental issues.

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