IS A light tipple when you鈥檙e pregnant OK? Lots of expecting mums now say they avoid even light drinking, but the latest study indicates that this may be an unnecessary precaution.
and colleagues from University College London analysed data collected from over 12,000 mothers and children in the UK since 2001. Children whose mothers had one or two alcoholic drinks per week during pregnancy had fewer behavioural and cognitive problems by age 3 than the children of women who abstained completely (International Journal of Epidemiology, ).
Kelly says that light drinking is unlikely to be physiologically beneficial. Rather, the light drinkers in her study tended to be better educated and have higher incomes than heavy drinkers and abstainers. These people might be more likely interact with their child in a way that helps them do well in cognitive tests, which would affect the results, even though Kelly says she went to 鈥渆normous lengths鈥� to remove the influence of social factors. Light drinking could also help women to relax, making the pregnancy less stressful.
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鈥淟ight drinking could help women to relax, making the pregnancy less stressful鈥�
While heavy drinking is known to cause fetal alcohol syndrome, the effects of a few drinks are harder to pin down (New Scientist, 29 June 2006, p 46). To be on the safe side, many countries now recommend abstaining.
, professor of statistics at the Universisty of Washington in Seattle says the research on light drinking has not arrived at a 鈥渟table conclusion鈥�. 鈥淲e have no evidence that it does anything and it probably makes women feel better,鈥� he says.
However, , a neuroscientist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, who has shown that in mice even a small amount of ethanol causes fetal neurons to die off, says it is difficult to detect 鈥渁nything but massive damage鈥� in people, so low-level harm might go unnoticed.
