Drinking during pregnancy is considered, by many, to be extremely dangerous. If you are pregnant and take a drink, your unborn child is having the same drink.
Indeed, according to the Women’s and Children’s Health Network, the alcohol will reach your unborn baby and his or her blood alcohol level will be the same as yours. They go on to state that for pregnant women there is no safe time to drink alcohol, and no safe amount.
Consider the following before drinking during pregnancy.
- 7 million children under 18 in the U.S. have alcoholic parents.
- If you’re addicted to alcohol during pregnancy, they will be too.
- Exposing a fetus to alcohol increases the child’s risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
- For children who have their first drink at 12 years of age, the prevalence of lifetime alcohol dependence is 41%.
- Children of alcoholics are 4 times more likely to develop a drinking problem.
- Underage kids see 45% more alcohol ads than legal drinking adults.
- 40,000 babies are born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome each year.
- Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has risen 50% in the last three years.
- Alcohol withdrawal for a baby begins just hours after birth and can last up to 18 months.
Once again, if you are expecting a baby, drinking alcohol is the worst way possible to start off the new life inside you.