LOOKING AFTER HEALTH DURING PREGNANCY: STAYING OFF ALCOHOL
You may be told by your doctor not to drink during the first three months of pregnancy but it is fine after that as long as it’s only one or two glasses now and again. However, unfortunately, we now know that even a little bit can be too much. During the first 12 weeks, the highest rate of cell division takes place and all the major organs are formed, so there is more risk if a toxin like alcohol gets to the baby then. After the third month the baby grows and matures. This period is important because, even though the baby is fully formed, his or her organs cannot function on their own yet. As well as the heart and lungs the brain is also maturing. It is the brain that can be vulnerable to damage after the first 12 weeks.
It has been known for centuries that drinking during pregnancy can cause problems with the health of the baby. In the 1720s ‘gin epidemic’, the Royal College of Physicians stated that parental drinking was a cause of ‘weak, feeble and distempered children’.
Alcohol is classed as a teratogen (an agent or drug that can cause malformation of an embryo or foetus). Professor David Smith from Washington points out that ‘there is no known teratogen yet studied in man which clearly shows a threshold effect where the substance is quite safe to a particular level, beyond which it is teratogenic’. In effect, he is saying that the experts cannot say that one glass a week would be fine but two glasses are not. As the World Health Organization states, ‘no alcohol during pregnancy is the only safe limit’.
By day 36 of pregnancy, the neural tube of the embryo opens and a rudimentary system is formed. If a teratogenic substance like alcohol is drunk at this most crucial time, it can result in various malformations in the newborn (e.g. defective heart and muscular skeletal abnormalities).
Remember that you will be two weeks pregnant before you know you are. You only know that you might be pregnant when your period is late.
However, although the first three months are the most critical, the teratogenic effects of alcohol continue throughout pregnancy, affecting, at the later stages, brain development and function, in particular. Low birth weight and congenital abnormalities have all been linked to the teratogenic effect, with the probability of twice the risk of abnormalities.
The placenta does not act as a barrier. Alcohol is a low molecular substance which is quite capable of crossing the placenta and entering the baby. It does not take a mathematician to work out that, in relative terms, a dose of alcohol must have a much more profound effect on a minute developing embryo than on the much larger mother.
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Tags: Women’s Health