Drinking by Men or Women Affects Miscarriage Risk

Reuters ^ | 18 October 2004 | Charnicia E. Huggins

[cake_crumb]

"Taking precautions is the best way to go.............however, the scare tactics of these types of stories probably do more harm than they do good. The stress caused by the worry over any possible harm done by the few drinks prior to knowing one is pregnant most likely causes more harm than the alcohol itself."

You're absolutely right. When I start seeing a comparable number of articles warning potential young mothers and fathers of the dangers of other, more addictive drungs on their babies, these legalese, feel-ggod scare stories might have a bit more credence.

It's more than a little intellectually insulting listening to zealots wandering around warning women of all the horrors alcohol usage will cause to their unborn babies, while handing them a business card for an abortion clinic and a free needle so they don't get AIDS while shooting up

[Old Professer]

Still trying to excuse Democrats, eh?

[Gabz]

It's more than a little intellectually insulting listening to zealots wandering around warning women of all the horrors alcohol usage will cause to their unborn babies, while handing them a business card for an abortion clinic and a free needle so they don't get AIDS while shooting up

No kidding. And the anti-tobacco zealots are just as bad. I actually had one tell me my daughter would have been better off had I been to one of those clinics so she would not have been born, just because I happen to smoke.

The scare tactics of the nannyists is absolutely outrageous, the big problem is they get paid big bucks for their fear-mongering based upon very shaky "scientific research."

[cake_crumb]

If the studies you're depending on don't take into account the environment of the houshold in which those kids were raised for eighteen years, those results are equally bogus. Too many things which are the fault of the parents have been blamed on outside influences as the result of the 80's-90's feel good, therapy culture.

I work with troubled teens. No child is raised in a vacuum. It's impossible to scientifically trace one physical factor as a root cause of all of their problems. It is very rare that one emotional factor can ever be traced as the root cause of all of their problems. That's because it is the human condition to evolve intellectually and emotionally every day as a result of our interaction with the world around us. Therefore, the test conditions change from day to day with the individual.

It's social workers who think they're all Freud Jr who get their hooks into these kids and TELL them, sometimes on a daily basis, what to feel, what to think and that everything is their parents' fault in one way or another; that they are responsible for nothing and must concentrate on feeling good about themselves, whatever the eventual cost to them. Because that cause is never calculated. Any further problems can be conveniently blamed in the parents.

In addition I am sick and tired of hearing pop-psyche aficionados insisting that kids have no intellectual capacity until they're 18 and that all thoughts must be taught to them until then. That's nothing more than an excuse to brainwash our youth. The truth is that all children have the capacity to reason logically from day one, and only intellectual stimulation and the neurons such stimulation causes to connect will affect the intellectual capacity of the average child - as long as that child suffers no physical head trauma resulting in brain damage.

From experience, I can tell you pop-psych "wisdom", like promoting crack and ecstasy while preaching against other drugs with far lower side effect rates has caused more problems in the past ten years than all the alcoholic mothers in the same time period. For your information, crack has a 100 percent damage rate in unborn children. You seem yo have forgotten than in your emotional charge against latest pseudo-scientific fad.

[cake_crumb]

"No kidding. And the anti-tobacco zealots are just as bad. I actually had one tell me my daughter would have been better off had I been to one of those clinics so she would not have been born, just because I happen to smoke."

My oldest daughter had preeclampsia which eventually nearly killed her and her son. Some nurse told her that none of this would have happened if she hadn't smoked...ignoring new evidence that when preeclampsia runs in the family of one parent, even the father, the resulting pregnancy is also at higher risk.

My daughter, afraid for her son's life, really did not need this pseudo-scientific guilt laid on her by some moron proselytizing from pop-psych pulpit. Fior one thing, it raised her out of control blood pressure even more and caused more potential harm to the baby.

Since my daughter wasn't in any shape to do it, I let the twit have it with both barrels. I also told her doctor, a neonatal specialist. His position was that it's best to try to quit smoking while pregnant, but he never went beyond that sound and practical advice into Tinfoil Hat Land. He never let that nurse anywhere near my daughter again, either.

[cake_crumb]

Speaking of sniffles, a study came out a few years ago that said women who catch the flu while pregnant are more likely to have children that will grow up suffering from some form of schizophrenia. This is one example of the many studies published every year which claim to show the cause behind the studied effect. Make of the results as you will. They may be correct, but the paper itself is in that giant, dusty backroom where all the other un-mass marketable studies must be stored.

Always remember that the better a study plays on the news, the more it will be spun. Remember the milk-will-kill-you study and the oat-bran-prevents-colin-cancer story. Therefore, take the words of TV experts with a grain of salt, knowing that though they might care about their subject, most of them care equally about the fee they're being paid to give that opinion.

I agree there's no reason to take needless risk with your child, but going the other extreme is unhealthy for the mother and therefore affects her child.

[luckystarmom]

I had three miscarriages. I don't drink much, and completely stopped when I started trying to have kids.

My husband drinks occasionally one or 2 glasses of beer.

I was over 30 and then my progesterone levels were very low. As soon as I started taking progresterone after I ovulated, I had two successful pregnancies (one resulted in identical twins).

Usually, doctors don't test hormone levels until after a 2nd miscarriage. Did they check these women beforehand to determine what was going on or did they just give them a questionaire?

[Gabz]

Thank goodness your daughter has a sensible doctor.

Your daughter's experience speaks exactly to my point about the fear mongering tactics being used against pregnant women. Rasing her blood pressure was not a smart move on the part of that nurse.

I was lucky in having a sensible doctor as well. she only mentioned smoking and drinking twice......the first time I saw her she was happy I stopped alcohol and caffeine consumption, and told me to cut back on smoking.

The next time she mentioned alcohol was when I was getting ready to attend my 25th HS reunion and she told me if my stomach could tolerate it I was more than welcome to have a glass or 2 of wine, preferably red. And I had never even mentioned alcohol, I only brought up the reunion because of the travel involved. I was about 8 months at that point.

The only other time she mentioned my smoking was the morning after my daughter was born, when she told me if I wanted to have a cigarette to call a nurse and have her take me out to the courtyard!

[Gabz]

It almost seems as if you think there are people here ADVOCATING that there is nothing wrong with alcohol during pregnancy. Nothing could be further from the truth in what I'm reading on this thread. At most it has been shown that a couple of drinks over the course of a pregnancy is not going to cause any problems.

The bigger problem is the damage caused by fear mongering.

[Gabz]

I have not stated at all that over consumption is not harmful during pregnancy.......but this article is primarily about consumption BEFORE conception not after.

Pseudo-science being used to achieve a goal, in this case prohibition, is still pseudo-science.

[Gabz]

I'm not arguing with your knowlege, or the fact that excessive alcohol consumption during pregnancy has a high probability of causing many problems in a child.

My original arguement concerns the ridiculous way in which these "studies" are presented to the public. The way this is written makes great copy, but it is absolutely meaningless in any scientific way.

My knowlege is not in the alcohol studies, but in tobacco studies when it comes to effects during pregnancy............but they are not all that different, as they are funded in most part by the same entities. I would love to at least see the abstract of this "study" to see exactly what the "3 times" and "5 times" increase actually mean.

[cake_crumb]

I know all that. I also know that occaisional alcohol usage has been proven not harmful to a developing fetus many, many times. SDon't get me wrong, I'm not recommending that pregnant women drink. As I said before, I did not. However, the choice is up to the mother.

What I am tired of is people telling parents of problem kids, parents who pop them put and then plop them in front of a TV as soon as they're old enough to sit in a walker, that their child's problems are due to smoking whoile pregnant, or drinking while pregnant..not the total LACK of parenting the child is getting, but one event that happened before buirth.

What I've pointed out is that there is no ONE scientifically provable physical factor that can be unequivocally pointed to which is the cause of a child's possible developmental problems. Other factors, like the living environment and current diet must be taken into account, because the brain is an amzing construct and the more input it gets, the better it develops. This is a fact, and positive results can be seen even in autistic and trisomal kids (higher end).

I also gave an example of one pregnancy - my daughter's, and I forgot to mention she tried to quit smokeing when she discovered she was pregnant and had been on one cigarette a day fpr 4 months when preeclampsia set in and the nurse blamed it on her smoking. Any problems Cael might have will be due, not to smoking or anything else his mother did while pregnant : it will be due to the results of oxygen deprivation due to lack of blood flow through the umbilicus as a result of the preeclampsia.

No one factor.

We can do everything right and still have everything go wrong. Period.

There is no sense letting a need to do everything right become a neurosis - increasingly common in the past 15 years - and thus causing actual health problems for the mother, which then can really harm her baby.

[Gabz]

There is no sense letting a need to do everything right become a neurosis - increasingly common in the past 15 years - and thus causing actual health problems for the mother, which then can really harm her baby.

Thank you for summing up, so well, what I was apparently having a difficult time putting into words.

I would have commented earlier, except my computer took a bit of a header on me and we had a meeting to attend. Since both my husband and I were attending we brought our 6 year old with us. The 6 yo kept herself occupied with an activity magazine and her "journal" during the 45 minute meeting. Nobody noticed her being there and then most folks engaged her in conversation during 'social" time afterwards. So much for damage done by smoking and drinking on the part of her parents.