Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is a pretty straight forward issue. The fact of the matter is that a huge volume of research produced over several decades has confirmed, time and time again, that excessive drinking of alcohol during pregnancy will have severely harmful effects on your baby. Alcohol can indeed pass through the placenta to your baby’s body. Because your baby’s body processes alcohol much slower than your body does, her blood alcohol level will bet higher and stay higher for much longer than your blood alcohol level. Generally speaking, alcohol during pregnancy should probably be avoided, although studies show that the damage caused by drinking alcohol during pregnancy increases with the severity of drinking and the frequency.

There are any number of birth defects associated with drinking alcohol during pregnancy. These can include brain damage, brain abnormalities, urinary tract defects, kidney defects, heart defects, and heart murmurs. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause deformities of the internal organs, the ears, the face, and the genitals. It can cause a baby to be born with a cleft palate. It can cause nearsightedness, as well as failure of the eyes to move in the same direction. It can cause a baby to have a curvature of the spine and deformation of the ribs or sternum, as well as dislocation of the hips and damage to the joint. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause a child to develop more slowly than normal physically, mentally, and emotionally. It can contribute to hearing problems, vision problems, and mood disorders. Finally, drinking alcohol during pregnancy puts your baby at risk for being born prematurely, or at a low birthweight.

Finally, drinking alcohol during pregnancy puts your baby at risk for having fetal alcohol syndrome. This is a combination of physical and mental birth defects that affects more than 1 out of 20 babies born to women who are alcoholics or who binge drink during pregnancy. A baby with fetal alcohol syndrome will be born abnormally smaller than usually, and will not be able to catch up as they grow older, in addition to having a small and abnormally formed brain.

Posted in Pregnancy

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