Can pregnant women drink alcohol? A study says it could be safe

There are many studies for many years that have been telling us that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can be dangerous for the baby, and that is why it has always been recommended that if a woman is pregnant do not drink a drop of alcohol.

A recent study wanted to evaluate 10-year-old children from Avon, a former town in southwestern England, to see if there were changes among those who were born by a mother who drank alcohol and those who developed with a mother who did not drink. The funny thing is that there weren't, it could be safe, and what makes the recommendation not vary is that they were fixed in balance, nothing more.

Study Characteristics

Well, "nothing more" is a bit short. The ability to balance is considered a reliable method of fetal neurodevelopment, so they evaluated 6,915 10-year-old children from Avon to check that ability. The mothers were consulted to explain how much alcohol they drank at 18 weeks of pregnancy and then when the child had already turned 4 years old.

Most mothers (70%) said they had not consumed alcohol during pregnancy. 25% said they had had a low (one to two drinks per week) and moderate (three to seven drinks per week) consumption. Of these, one in seven explained that they had had very high consumption days, drinking up to four glasses of alcohol in the same day.

When the children were four years old, 50% of the mothers had a moderate consumption (3 to 7 drinks per week), the profile being that of older, richer and better educated women.

When the children had already ten years evaluated the balance with three tests: one that included walking on a balance beam (to observe dynamic balance), another that consisted of standing in front of the other with eyes open and closed (to assess static balance) and the third, in which they had to stand on one leg, with eyes open and closed.

Conclusions of the study

The researchers noted that the children of mothers who had drunk alcohol moderately had no worse balance than those whose mothers did not drink alcohol. It was even seen that they obtained better results in some tests. However, it is believed that these positive results could be secondary to the wealth and education of mothers, that is, the brain development that occurs after birth.

John Macleod, one of the study's authors, explained that there is no evidence that moderate alcohol use is good for children, but that equally there seems to be no firm evidence about the damages that alcohol consumption could cause.

I, by common sense, will continue to say and think that alcohol during pregnancy cannot be good (In addition, other studies support it). If it doesn't seem advisable to anyone, whether male or female, pregnant or not, it may not seem suitable for a developing fetus. Let's not forget that the blood alcohol concentration reached by the mother will be the same as that of the fetus.

For example, if a pregnant woman drinks a beer, your son will also have a beer. As I do not think that anyone in their right mind gives a beer to a newborn between drink and drink (he puts a beer in a bottle and offers it to the baby until it is finished), I cannot think that it may be good that A woman takes it while pregnant.

Other studies?

Of course, it is not the first time that the effects of alcohol taken during pregnancy on the future baby are studied. Apparently it does not affect balance, but it can affect other things. A meta-analysis conducted in 2010, for example, showed that the risk of suffering from leukemia was significantly higher in children whose mothers drank.

Another study on 501 mothers and children analyzed the consequences at 6 and 7 years of drinking alcohol during pregnancy and it was seen that drinking alcohol only once a week already affected the aggressiveness of children significantly.

So definitely not, it is not advisable to drink alcohol while pregnant, because one thing is balance and another very different that may affect other things, such as general health or behavior, or more things we have not talked about (growth delays, birth defects, etc.).