Drinking beer while pregnant - Page 5

[eightyferrettoes]

I remember the champagne thread! :LOL

What a trainwreck that was. Back then, I was lurking in comfortable anonymity, but I was on your side, Lovechild!

[LoveChild421]

Thanks eightyferrettoes! That thread was even more heated than this one- it was totally ridiculous- all of a sudden I was a bad immature mom for having one glass of champagne on New Year's :LOL the same tone of judgement is creeping through this thread.

[Persephone]

Just delurking from this thread, but I remember the champagne thread too.What a nightmare. For some reason, this issue fascinates me. I've made up my mind, and I'm not likely to change it anytime soon, but I keep watching anyway. And my opinion isn't even all that strong! I don't think it's bad to have a moderate amount of alcohol, though, as a general rule, I'm avoiding it for this pregnancy. Lovechild, if you're a bad mom, then so am I. I had half a glass of wine on vacation last month. *shock!*

[MrsMoe]

Originally Posted by LoveChild421

Thanks eightyferrettoes! That thread was even more heated than this one- it was totally ridiculous- all of a sudden I was a bad immature mom for having one glass of champagne on New Year's :LOL the same tone of judgement is creeping through this thread.

I don't think so. Nobody here said anything about about a single drink once in a while. The issue is regular drinking. I'm sorry if I made you feel like I thought bad of anyone for having a glass of champange on New Years or another holiday.

[MrsMoe]

Originally Posted by MerryOne

I must give my personal view, I drank with my son until he was 4 months, (not heavy but enough that I at 17 questioned my doc who told me not to worry, I had not drank enough to hurt my child) I did not know I was preg, tested negative and had a period 2 of the months, he was born healthy and normal, and tho dyslexic test above normal level on IQ test.
I find nothing wrong with a drink for a special occasion or a glass of wine here or there while pregnant, I worry if the mother is drinking more than a glass at a sitting, everyday along those lines.
Plus I find that beer makers market the non alki lines the very much the SAME bottles etc as the ones with alki in them, so I'd look to see if she was drinking non alcoholic beer first before commenting, because she might not be having alcohol at all


Why are you on MDC?
the very nature of this site is built on listening to your intuition, medical facts and research would say that we are all stupid for home birthing with no meds, breast feeding past 6 months and on demand, not vac-ing, slinging and having attached children, and gasp co sleeping which is in their view worse of all for some, we are going to roll over on on kids in the night.

So I do not belong on MDC because I am an atheist and do not believe in intuition? Wow.

[LoveChild421]

Originally posted by MrsMoe
I don't think so. Nobody here said anything about about a single drink once in a while. The issue is regular drinking. I'm sorry if I made you feel like I thought bad of anyone for having a glass of champange on New Years or another holiday.

no you didn't make me feel bad! I was just commenting on how the negative vibes in this thread remind me sooooo much of that thread (which was worse believe me )

[Yummymummy74]

Originally Posted by LoveChild421

no you didn't make me feel bad! I was just commenting on how the negative vibes in this thread remind me sooooo much of that thread (which was worse believe me )

I remember that thread.. :LOL I posted on it about Jack Newmans articles.. which to me provided some pretty fascinating evidence about the whole blood alcohol level thing..

[beachcomber]

Would you be able to post a link to those articles? I'm really interested in reading them...

[beachcomber]

I'm an athiest and I believe in intuition. I don't think intuition has any connection at all to faith or spirituality. To me, it's simply a combination of learned experience, common sense and instinct. Granted, intuition is not necessarily "rational" but that's part of it's value, in my experience. If humans didn't possess intuition and instinct, we would never have made it out of the Stone Age.

The Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster definitions of intuition makes no mention of faith, spirituality, religion or the supernatural.

Dictionary.com:
1.
1. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition. See Synonyms at reason.
2. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.
2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.
Merriam-Webster:
1 : quick and ready insight
2 a : immediate apprehension or cognition b : knowledge or conviction gained by intuition c : the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

That said, I don't think you need to believe in the validity of intuition to post here. All you need is to love your children and want what's best for them. There are hundreds of different perspectives from very devoutly christian to athiest, from crunchy granola to liberal to conservative. 99% of the time, we can coexist quite peacefully.

[vegetalien]

I think actually that everybody in this discussion actually agrees, we are all on the same page that drinking regularly is harmful. and mrsmoe has said a few times that on occasion is fine.

as for being judgmental, i agree that mrsmoe is going overboard a bit, but don't we all judge people on a day-to-day basis? for ex, if you saw a parent hit their child in public, what's the first thought that would go into your head? probably a judgement. certainly we're not always correct but i do think it's normal to make inferences about people when you observe them doing something that hits a nerve. personally, if i saw my pregnant neighbour drinking two beers on 4 different occasions, it would raise my eyebrows some.

i totally agree that it's unwise to blindly believe every "scientific" study one reads. but people keep using attachment parening as an example to counter science, and, is it just me or are there a LOT of reputable scientific studies that support many of attachment parenting's characteristics (breastfeeding, gentle discipline, midwifery, even cosleeping now, etc). fact is you can almost always find "reputable" sources to defend either sides of the fence of almost any topic.

my 2 cents on the original topic. i do hear what mrs.moe is saying about why take the chance. it's true that the chances are pretty good that moderate drinking won't harm the fetus, but i doubt it's good for it. personally i have never felt a desire for a drink strong enough to take that chance, but that's just me. i wouldn't condone a pregnant person for having a glass of wine on a special occasion. it's true that it's none of our business but i agree with the poster who said that to some extent (that's where the fine line is tricky) if a baby or child is at a potential risk of mistreatment, it's nice when a community takes responsibility for being concerned.

but, yeah, this discussion isn't really going anywhere because mrsmoe keeps talking about excessive drinking when everybody else is talking moderate. i think we all agree on that matter.

just my two cents!

[sweetpea333]

how can anyone even think one drink is fine?? one drink may feel nice to us but the baby inside who doesn't have tolerence to alcohol is sick, one drink is enough to make a baby feel drunk. why risk it??? why stop at an occasional drink, how about an occasional cigarrette, or an occasional joint??

[MrsMoe]

Originally Posted by MerryOne

What does what I said have to do with your lack of religion?
My statement applies only to your apparent lack of trust in a woman to know what is best for her, which last time I checked was a basic principal of attached parenting, using your intuition instead of a doctor's to know what is best for you and your child.
Just to put this into context, my cousin is dating a medical student who aims to become an ob/gyn this young man likes to say that c/s births are the safest and easiest way to give birth, I'm sure he can find and spill off the top of his head these "facts", and he has told my cousin many times that she is "too small" to birth a child vaginally which is rarely the truth, but he is biased.
MOST doctors are also biased, to interventions and the like and when they write papers and so on they lean towards their version of truth, which is then printed as studies and given as much media air time as possible.
You are saying that my intuition which lead me to co sleep, breast feed, cloth diaper and try to be as gentle a parent as I could be living in a country (caribbean) where the formula companies have flooded the market with their version of truth and next to no one cloth diapers or bfed after leaving the hospital is faulty/wrong/irresponsible just does not make sense
It is not rude for you to say what lead many of us to this life style is non logical???
I question if you can respect many of us who come here lead by that intution that you so carelessly dismiss.

Unless you want to apologize to me for your unkind comment, I won't respond to you.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by sweetpea333

how can anyone even think one drink is fine?? one drink may feel nice to us but the baby inside who doesn't have tolerence to alcohol is sick, one drink is enough to make a baby feel drunk. why risk it???

Why risk what, exactly?

MrsMoe: You've asked several times why anybody would risk drinking while pregnant. In the case of occasional drinkers, the reasons are varied - from the time I used a drink as an aid to sleep, to someone I knew having a single glass of champagne at her best friend's wedding, because she wanted to be involved in teh toasts.

In the case of regular/heavy drinkers, it's a whole different matter. Many of these people have serious problems with alcohol, and part of the problem is that they cope (badly) with life through denial. When someone has their entire view of life invested in denying that they drink too much, denying that it has any negative effect, denying everything about their drinking...drinking while pregnant is a fairly natural consequence of the mindset.

[beachcomber]

Originally Posted by sweetpea333

how can anyone even think one drink is fine?? one drink may feel nice to us but the baby inside who doesn't have tolerence to alcohol is sick, one drink is enough to make a baby feel drunk. why risk it??? why stop at an occasional drink, how about an occasional cigarrette, or an occasional joint??

Is this anecdotal or do you have anything concrete to back that up?
Seriously.

eta:

I don't mean to sound bitchy, but this point's already been made (and countered using cultural differences, history, and a refutation of the validity and TRUTH of scientific studies, etc.) Reiterating the "one drink is deadly" perspective really just seems like a judgement. Especially given the "How can anyone even think one drink is fine??" opener.

Just my opinion.

[sweetpea333]

i didn't mean that one drink would cause death, but would probably make a baby feel ill and drunk, just like i get a buzz off of one drink im sure a baby would, just because it doesnt' make a baby retarded or die, do we still not care about the babies comfort in the womb?? maybe i just dont see the point, it's not that hard to refrain from drinking is it??

[jstar]

the US is so uptight. we've been brainwashed to believe what works for the lowest common denominator: NO alcohol during pregnancy

leave it to the mother to decide what she feels is appropriate and safe. we're educated women. we can decide for ourselves.

but you know educating the masses with the zero tolerance idea to make it socially unacceptable to drink in public during pregnancy probably has saved a ton of babies from fetal alcohol syndrome. and that's a good thing

but you still have to respect the right of women to decide what is appropriate for their lives in light of all the information that is out there.

[MrsMoe]

Originally Posted by sweetpea333

i didn't mean that one drink would cause death, but would probably make a baby feel ill and drunk, just like i get a buzz off of one drink im sure a baby would, just because it doesnt' make a baby retarded or die, do we still not care about the babies comfort in the womb?? maybe i just dont see the point, it's not that hard to refrain from drinking is it??

Those are my personal feelings also. While it isn't the same as drinking on a regular occasion and is highly unlikely to cause any fetal harm, it is something I would not personally do.

[beachcomber]

Okay. There's something fundamental that I don't understand here ...

Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes people are going to do things you personally dislike? I mean this is just a basic fact of life. It happens all the time.

[MrsMoe]

Originally Posted by beachcomber

Okay. There's something fundamental that I don't understand here ...

Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes people are going to do things you personally dislike? I mean this is just a basic fact of life. It happens all the time.

Hard to accept for whom? Who are you directing this statement at?

I suppose you could say that there are many things in life that are "hard to accept" - or in other words things that upset me- on a personal basis. What are thigns that bother me? Child abuse, global starvation and poverty, spousal abuse, spanking, racisim, circimcision, and so on. But these are my personal feelings, and like you and everyone here, we all have different opinions as to what is morally right and wrong. Women drinking on a regular basis or in excess during pregnancy is something that disturbs me personally because of dangers to the fetus.

I don't "judge" women who drink on a regular basis or in excessduring pregnancy because there is a reason they must be doing so, which I feel stems from them either not being educated to facts and possible dangers to their fetus or because they may have issues with alcohol dependancy in which case I would feel for the mother. It doesn't disturb me however if a woman has a single drink on a special occasion because I don't see any long term damage is possible to her fetus.

Do you plan on having a natural childbirth without pain medications? Why? Do you plan on breastfeeding? Why? Would you circumcise your son? Why or why not?

Mothers should make choices depending on what is best for baby, not what is best for mommy.

[eightyferrettoes]

Originally Posted by MrsMoe

Mothers should make choices depending on what is best for baby, not what is best for mommy.

But to what extent? I consider a drink a day a perfectly reasonable limit for a pregnant woman. That's "regular" by anybody's definition. We make all kinds of choices during pregnancy that could potentially harm the babes.

Eating processed, pesticide-laden foods, walking through carbon monoxide car fumes, driving, taking medicine, going to noisy environments, eating sushi... the list goes on. Do pregnant women have to stay in a padded, air-conditioned room?

The "no alcohol during pregnancy" has very little controlled research to back it up, and I think that restricting pregnant women is quite condescending. It reeks of enforced morality, not science.

JMHO.