Reply to Is there any objective source of information on light drinking during pregnancy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Would you give your 3 month old baby a tiny sip of alcohol? Where do you draw the line?[/quote]

You jest, but rubbing alcohol on babies gums used to be VERY common for teething. We survived... [/quote]

But it clearly f***ed with your intelligence. [/quote]

I do not understand how historical context of drinking in pregnancy is just thrown off as crazy in this forum over and over on this issue.

Historically MANY drinks had alcohol content. In the middle ages people drank mead and ale at almost every meal. Water was frequently dirty. Pregnant women had no reason to avoid alcohol historically and so throughout human history probably drank alcoholic beverages with meals.

The whole of human history didn't have FASD (although certainly many did).

The body is pretty good at sorting out impurities. It has kept the human race alive and thriving. I certainly think that knowing alcohol does damage and removing its consumption as a regular/frequent thing that pregnant women do is a good thing. But we actually DO have some evidence that moderate drinking isn't that damaging, and that is the whole of human history and the fact that our species didn't turn out like a light back in times when people drank alcohol the same way we drink iced tea. [/quote]
Because you can't compare ancient societies - where the options of killing a newborn with defects, locking up or beating kids with abandon were on the table - with modern society. People in those times led much different lives. Women started having children much younger, generally had no problem finding a way to dump an unwanted baby.. and it really hasn't been until the 20th century in Western societies that women have had social permission to sit on their asses sipping cocktails instead of doing an endless cycle of domestic labor and serving men their ale.

Plus, we know alcohol exposure poses very individualized risks on people. Many children of moms who drank are just fine, others have severe disorders, and every shade in between. [/quote]

I'm comparing the societies and saying that they are like, admirable. I'm just saying that people have been drinking since the middle ages. Maybe it wasn't until the 20th century that women were sitting around drinking cocktails, but in 1500 England EVERYONE drank ale. Alcoholic drinks have been bartered and traded and consumed since the first farmer knew how to grow and do something worthwhile with wheat. I think we invented beer before bread.

Of course they led much different lives and I'm in no way shape or form suggesting that we emulate the life of a medieval peasant. BUT, the fact that for centuries women were almost certainly drinking alcohol as a standard drink of the age, primarily because these drinks had alcohol which could act as a preservative for the drink, and the fact that not everyone had FASD, means that there is likely not that much danger at low levels of exposure.

I take a class D medication during pregnancy due to a chronic pain condition (valium, at a very low dose). It is classified as class d because of some (poor) studies done in the 70s but almost all my doctors agree that in all liklihood it is a safe medication because in the 40s and 50s basically everyone was on a benzo and if there were a clear terrible consequence of it it would have come out and been a huge deal back when it was an extremely common drug. The benefits of taking the medication (not being in agonizing pain that leaves me unable to function for months) vs the potential side effects would lead me to take this drug even if the concerns were greater. But it is an example of how doctors DO factor in broad human experience in their personal estimations of concern over certain substances.

Alcohol use has been endemic to the human experience for centuries. We know that excessive drinking leads to severe birth defects. But if mild drinking led to birth defects we would have known about it much sooner, because someone would have picked up on it centuries ago. [/quote]
Let me spell this out for you since you are not getting it. If babies were harmed by  prenatal alcohol exposure in 16th century England we wouldn't know because babies with problems were much more likely to either be miscarried, killed, died in early childhood, or if they survived, subjected to some other medieval horror to keep them in line (none of which are options in modern society). The mortality rate for babies and children was MUCH higher, and no one was tracking the causes, or the incidence of learning disabilities, etc.

You have no idea how many people were affected by alcohol over the course of human history so stop pretending binge watching the Tudors has equipped you with that knowledge. Nobody was keeping track and science wasn't concerned with the health impacts of anything on children until modern times.[/quote]

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