Know When to Say When Drinking during pregnancy is often thought of as no big deal. However, drinking during pregnancy is a very big deal. An unborn baby’s life is in the hands of the mother. If she decides to drink, she is risking the unborn’s chances of being as smart and healthy as it can be.
Drinking during pregnancy opens the doors to a variety of harmful effects on the mother and her unborn baby, and until this is brought out in the open with honesty, it cannot be prevented. There are many stereotypes about the women that drink while they are pregnant. One stereotype believed by professional doctors is that women that are college-educated and wealthy are going to drink less or not at all during pregnancy, and the poorer and uneducated women are going to drink more during pregnancy. However, just as stereotypes usually turn out, the complete opposite is true.
Women who receive college degrees are four times more likely to drink during pregnancy than women who only receive a high school diploma. Some statistics show that mothers who go to community and rural health centers to receive care are counseled more than mothers who go to private doctors’ offices. People should not make assumptions about something so important especially if it concerns a person’s health (Walsh 2-3).
Those assumptions may go beyond stereotyping of individuals and carry over to what is a safe level of alcohol. Some people believe that drinking a little amount of alcohol will not harm the fetus. However, in reality, “there is no known safe level of alcohol consumption for pregnant women” (Walsh 2).
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A woman runs the risk of having a child with defects if she drinks regularly (Orenberg 167).
“Binge drinking, or heavy alcohol consumption at one sitting, is particularly hazardous to the fetus because very high levels of alcohol enter the mother’s blood stream” (“Fetal Alcohol”).
High levels of alcohol consumption can leave the fetus exposed longer making birth defects more severe (“Fetal Alcohol”).
The fetus is exposed longer because its organs are still developing, therefore, taking the fetus twice as long to break down the alcohol (Walsh 2).
As a result of this, the fetus’ blood-alcohol level is much higher than the mother’s, thus meaning that at the moment the mother starts to feel the effects of the alcohol, the unborn baby is about to pass out (Walsh 2).
No matter how little or heavy the amount of alcohol a mother drinks, it will still affect the fetus.
According to some people, the first three months is the safest time to drink. However, there is no safe time when a pregnant mother can drink. In fact, during the first three months, the fetus is at the highest risk of being harmed (Walsh 2).
Researchers concluded “that major physical defects in the human embryo, the early developing organism, can be caused by exposure to alcohol in the first trimester-that is the first three months of pregnancy” (“Fetal Alcohol”).
Exposure to alcohol in the third trimester can result in decreased fetal growth (“Fetal Alcohol”).
“Mothers who drink later in pregnancy chance miscarriages and giving birth to premature or low-weight babies” (Walsh 2).
Even after the child is born, alcohol can be passed through the breast milk, providing alcohol directly to the baby, that is, if the mother chooses to breast-feed her child (How Alcohol).
So, technically, there is no safe time to drink even after the baby is born. The fetus is not the only one harmed by alcohol consumption during pregnancy, but the mother is as well. In fact, many doctors urge women who think they are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant to stop drinking (“Fetal Alcohol”).
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“One percent of all mothers consume fourteen or more drinks per week during the three months before pregnancy” (Walsh 3).
To the average person one percent is not too large of a proportion. However, the volume of alcohol consumed is high during the time when a woman might be unaware of a new pregnancy (Walsh 3).
Women who are trying to get pregnant should become aware that alcohol upsets a woman’s hormonal balance, thus interfering with fertility (How Alcohol).
Therefore, “subtle, unnoticed disruptions of the menstrual cycle could make pregnancy unlikely” (How Alcohol).
Whether a woman is trying to get pregnant or is not trying but there could be a chance of pregnancy, a woman should refrain from drinking due to unintentional damage.
In addition to the mother, the fetus is put into an extreme state of danger if a woman decides to drink during pregnancy or is unaware of being pregnant. Through research, alcohol has been proven toxic to the fetus (“Fetal Alcohol”).
The baby lives inside the amniotic sac, which grows inside the mother’s uterus (Meyers 117).
The placenta is the fluid-filled organ that nourishes the fetus and absorbs oxygen and nutrients. Alcohol passes through the pregnant mother’s bloodstream into the placenta when she takes a drink (Walsh 2).
In a human body, alcohol chemically breaks down to acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde can damage living cells, and easily passes through the placenta and the umbilical cord (Bunch 3: 87).
“Alcohol affects the placenta reducing the blood flow to the fetus and causing a severe shortage of oxygen” (“Fetal Alcohol”).
“In a developing fetus, the liver is premature and can’t metabolize alcohol… .” (Walsh 2).
Drinking alcohol has a much more definite effect on the fetus than on an adult.
After the child is born, there can be many lasting effects on the baby. When a mother chooses to drink during pregnancy, she is putting her child at risk of being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome is “mild to severe mental and physical damage to the fetus caused by the mother’s use of alcohol during pregnancy” (“Fetal Alcohol”).
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Individuals showing characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome are described as having fetal alcohol effects (“Fetal Alcohol”).
“Brain damage, retardation, memory and coordination problems, hyperactivity, sleeping problems and facial abnormalities can result from a mother drinking during pregnancy” (Walsh 2).
During the early weeks of prenatal development, physical malformations originate such as a small skull or microcephaly, small eye openings, and congenital heart defects (Bunch 3: 86).
Children who show facial malformations and retarded growth can be identified at birth (Bunch 3: 87).
However, some children may suffer from alcohol-induced brain damage even if they do not show facial defects (Wu 170).
“Developmental disability and behavioral problems make their appearance in early childhood” (Bunch 3: 87).
There are so many aftereffects of drinking during pregnancy that a mother should not even think about drinking.
The only way to prevent a child from being born with fetal alcohol syndrome is to not drink during pregnancy. However, counseling pregnant mothers helps as well. Most women know that drinking while pregnant is bad for the baby, yet they are reluctant to admit that what they are doing is harming their baby (Walsh 1).
Consequently, “most physicians strongly caution against consuming more than one or two drinks a week and many advise against consuming any alcohol during a pregnancy” (How Alcohol).
“Nearly 25% of mothers who drank before pregnancy report that their prenatal care provider did not counsel them about possible effects during pregnancy” (Walsh 3).
Even though the doctors that counsel about the drinking habits of the pregnant are usually uncomfortable with the topic, they “can’t afford to wait and see if the baby looks and acts abnormal in the nursery” (Walsh 2-3).
No matter how uncomfortable the topic, the doctor has a moral obligation to counsel the pregnant mother about drinking in order to prevent the child from being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. There are not many options when it comes to treatment for fetal alcohol syndrome. “The harm caused in the womb is irreversible and lasts a lifetime” (Walsh 2).
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Drugs can improve some behavioral problems (Bunch 3: 87).
Congenital heart defects are diagnosed by electrocardiogram and can be surgically repaired (Bunch 3: 87).
As for the rest of the defects that come with fetal alcohol syndrome, there is not much hope for improvement.
Despite the knowledge about potential effects on the fetus, births of babies born with fetal alcohol syndrome occur often. “In industrialized Western countries about one in every hundred babies is affected” (Bunch 3: 87).
In fact, “eight out of every hundred pregnant women go into labor sometime after the 15 th week of pregnancy, but before the pregnancy has reached its full term roughly 40 weeks. If birth occurs before the 36 th week, or 9 th month, the baby might be too small to survive on its own outside the womb” (Orenberg 159).
Even if there is one occurrence of a baby born with fetal alcohol syndrome that is one occurrence too many. Drinking during pregnancy opens the doors to a variety of harmful effects on the mother and her unborn baby, and until this is brought out in the open with honesty, it cannot be prevented.
It is sad to hear about women that do not quit drinking when they find out that they are pregnant. It is a moral obligation not to jeopardize the well being of the unborn child.
