As with all things in science (it feels), everything backtracks eventually. Where once you were a pariah for drinking while pregnant, now it's kind of okay.
Headlines blared that suddenly it's not the end of the world to indulge in some light drinking while pregnant, and even alluded to the fact that it may be beneficial.
Talk about pushing a red hot button.
I'll admit that Child Psych was not my favorite class. I've never been too interested in how a brain forms, preferring to latch on to how the brain is currently formed and WTF is wrong with it. But I do remember our section on teratogens and how different outside influences can have more or less effect depending on what stage of development the fetus is in. So yes, I know there's a group of arguments out there about timing and indulging moderately, yadda yadda.
But (and it's a big BUT), the fluidity of the factors are simply too varried to account for safely, which the Globe & Mail does a good job of pointing out. How much is "light drinking"? What about the relative body mass of the mother? Frighteningly, I remember studying Fetal Alcohol Symdrome and seeing an interview from a mother who had a couple of glasses of wine when she didn't know she was pregnant and bam, FAS Baby.
Now, before running my mouth off I did go and read the actual study as published. And the whole claim that light drinkers had babies with fewer hyperactivity signs or high total difficulties was based on a difference of 1 or 2.
Good to know for those who may take a drink unknowingly while pregnant (why you would spike a pregnant woman's drink, I don't know) and are panicking that they've doomed their fetus to a squishy faced life. But chances were good before this study that a single exposure to a teratogen is not a good reason to immediately assume the worse.
Anyway, my thoughts on this are getting away from me. Suffice it to say, why would someone run this study this in the first place?
