9 ms·

> Where's the evidence that small amounts of alcohol are harmful? >we know alcohol is harmful, but we don't know what a safe limit is, so we set a limit of zer

> Where's the evidence that small amounts of alcohol are harmful? >we know alcohol is harmful, but we don't know what a safe limit is, so we set a limit of zero. Literally that right there. It's not like we can test on humans to find what the safe amount is, that's highly unethical, highly illegal, and will never be done. The safe amount is zero, or as close to zero as you can get. It shouldn't cause any guilt or stress on the mother: it's not impossible or even difficult to completely abstain from alcohol for nine months unless you're an alcoholic, and if you're an alcoholic, you're not going to have "a small glass of wine every so often". There's actually negative societal pressure for pregnant women drinking. What would cause more stress and guilt? Not drinking while pregnant, or drinking some amount and then wondering if your child will be born with some birth defect because of it? Or wondering if your child's birth defect was caused by your drinking? The safe bet is just to not drink, to not smoke, to not abuse drugs. I honestly never thought I would be seeing a discussion about how it's not fair to ask pregnant women to abstain from alcohol.

DanBC 11y ago
> What would cause more stress and guilt? Not drinking while pregnant, or drinking some amount and then wondering if your child will be born with some birth defect because of it? Or wondering if your child's birth defect was caused by your drinking? The safe bet is just to not drink, to not smoke, to not abuse drugs. Just for clarity: I mean a small glass per week. I said "a small glass every so often". There's zero chance of a birth defect from one small glass of wine a week. But women doing that will, as you say, face fierce societal condemnation whenever they drink. > I honestly never thought I would be seeing a discussion about how it's not fair to ask pregnant women to abstain from alcohol. It's not about whether it's fair or not. It's about whether the risks from small amounts of alcohol are greater than the risks of stress and anxiety women experience when guilt-tripped by other people. Society has some really unpleasant judgemental attitudes about pregnant women. They're already under a load of self-imposed pressure. They don't need it from other people.
- freehunter 11y ago
  >There's zero chance of a birth defect from one small glass of wine a week. Where's the evidence to back this up? Here are the facts: 1. Alcohol is harmful. 2. We don't know exactly how harmful. 3. We can't test to see exactly how harmful. The output of that is, the recommendation is zero. The recommendation is zero because any other recommendation would be arbitrary at best, harmful on average, and debilitating at worst when people realize "one drink a week" isn't backed up by any science. And the social pressure will never let up, because who knows if that is the woman's first drink of the week or her fourth drink of the day? Yes of course people need pressure to not drink while pregnant! And even with that pressure, people still smoke and drink and do drugs while pregnant. Just like they need pressure not to speed, not to shoot up heroin, not to kill other people! That's the entire point of societal pressure, is to make people conform to activities that aren't actively harmful to society. If you tell women "don't drink", that's a very clear statement. Easy to follow. If you say "only drink one drink per week, maybe, we don't really know", there's a non-zero chance that more women will drink more than they should than we have today. But how much is too much? No one knows. So in effect, how much is too much? Any amount.
  - anonbanker 11y ago
    I replaced "alcohol" with "sex", and "drink" with "lay", and it worked out remarkably well, with appropriately humorous results. I invite the reader to do the same.
    - freehunter 11y ago
      Now try replacing "alcohol" with "a bullet through the head" and see if it's still funny. Or try doing a Google image search of "fetal alcohol syndrome". Smart asshole.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        But it's ridiculous to suggest that fetal alcohol syndrome is a risk for someone having one small glass of wine per week.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> it's not impossible or even difficult to completely abstain from alcohol for nine months unless you're an alcoholic Its perhaps fairly simply to abstain from things that are legally-mandated to be labeled as alcoholic beverages. It is not simple to completely abstain from alcohol, because alcohol is present at lower levels in things that don't meet the standards that make them legally regulated. Without knowing the actual relation between alcohol consumption and effects on fetal development, its true you don't know whether abstaining from occasional, small quantities of things legally labeled as alcoholic is necessary -- but you also don't know if complete abstention from things legally labeled as alcoholic is a sufficient degree of abstention from alcohol, or whether it is worthwhile (in cost/benefit terms) to exercise additional vigilance in terms of other products which contain alcohol but at lower levels than meet the legal standard for labeling.
- freehunter 11y ago
  "Alcoholic beverages" are not the only things a doctor tells a pregnant woman to abstain from. There is a huge list of things that are much harder to avoid, like soft cheeses or a cat's litter box.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > "Alcoholic beverages" are not the only things a doctor tells a pregnant woman to abstain from. I am quite acutely aware of that, but what's your point?
    - freehunter 11y ago
      If you're pregnant, do the things your doctor advises you to do. Don't try to make up the rules as you go along. Just because vanilla extract contains a negligible amount of alcohol doesn't mean a six pack of Natty Ice is okay. That's my point. I'm still not 100% sure what yours was.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

> What would cause more stress and guilt? Not drinking while pregnant, or drinking some amount and then wondering if your child will be born with some birth defect because of it? Or wondering if your child's birth defect was caused by your drinking? The safe bet is just to not drink, to not smoke, to not abuse drugs. Just for clarity: I mean a small glass per week. I said "a small glass every so often". There's zero chance of a birth defect from one small glass of wine a week. But women doing that will, as you say, face fierce societal condemnation whenever they drink. > I honestly never thought I would be seeing a discussion about how it's not fair to ask pregnant women to abstain from alcohol. It's not about whether it's fair or not. It's about whether the risks from small amounts of alcohol are greater than the risks of stress and anxiety women experience when guilt-tripped by other people. Society has some really unpleasant judgemental attitudes about pregnant women. They're already under a load of self-imposed pressure. They don't need it from other people.

freehunter 11y ago
>There's zero chance of a birth defect from one small glass of wine a week. Where's the evidence to back this up? Here are the facts: 1. Alcohol is harmful. 2. We don't know exactly how harmful. 3. We can't test to see exactly how harmful. The output of that is, the recommendation is zero. The recommendation is zero because any other recommendation would be arbitrary at best, harmful on average, and debilitating at worst when people realize "one drink a week" isn't backed up by any science. And the social pressure will never let up, because who knows if that is the woman's first drink of the week or her fourth drink of the day? Yes of course people need pressure to not drink while pregnant! And even with that pressure, people still smoke and drink and do drugs while pregnant. Just like they need pressure not to speed, not to shoot up heroin, not to kill other people! That's the entire point of societal pressure, is to make people conform to activities that aren't actively harmful to society. If you tell women "don't drink", that's a very clear statement. Easy to follow. If you say "only drink one drink per week, maybe, we don't really know", there's a non-zero chance that more women will drink more than they should than we have today. But how much is too much? No one knows. So in effect, how much is too much? Any amount.
- anonbanker 11y ago
  I replaced "alcohol" with "sex", and "drink" with "lay", and it worked out remarkably well, with appropriately humorous results. I invite the reader to do the same.
  - freehunter 11y ago
    Now try replacing "alcohol" with "a bullet through the head" and see if it's still funny. Or try doing a Google image search of "fetal alcohol syndrome". Smart asshole.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      But it's ridiculous to suggest that fetal alcohol syndrome is a risk for someone having one small glass of wine per week.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> it's not impossible or even difficult to completely abstain from alcohol for nine months unless you're an alcoholic Its perhaps fairly simply to abstain from things that are legally-mandated to be labeled as alcoholic beverages. It is not simple to completely abstain from alcohol, because alcohol is present at lower levels in things that don't meet the standards that make them legally regulated. Without knowing the actual relation between alcohol consumption and effects on fetal development, its true you don't know whether abstaining from occasional, small quantities of things legally labeled as alcoholic is necessary -- but you also don't know if complete abstention from things legally labeled as alcoholic is a sufficient degree of abstention from alcohol, or whether it is worthwhile (in cost/benefit terms) to exercise additional vigilance in terms of other products which contain alcohol but at lower levels than meet the legal standard for labeling.

freehunter 11y ago
"Alcoholic beverages" are not the only things a doctor tells a pregnant woman to abstain from. There is a huge list of things that are much harder to avoid, like soft cheeses or a cat's litter box.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > "Alcoholic beverages" are not the only things a doctor tells a pregnant woman to abstain from. I am quite acutely aware of that, but what's your point?
  - freehunter 11y ago
    If you're pregnant, do the things your doctor advises you to do. Don't try to make up the rules as you go along. Just because vanilla extract contains a negligible amount of alcohol doesn't mean a six pack of Natty Ice is okay. That's my point. I'm still not 100% sure what yours was.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago