| Having recently become pregnant, a lot of the guidance for expectant mothers echos these blanket recommendations (sushi, deli meats, hot baths etc). On the topic of alcohol, FASD is a massive concern, but it's known that it's correlated to how much you drink and how frequently you drink (enjoying a glass of wine once a month is very different than binge drinking multiple times throughout your pregnancy). The thing is, researchers aren't getting pregnant women different levels of hammered, and then assessing how their babies turn out (unethical much), so they're left to infer based on reported behaviors. Hence the unreliability of the data, and the "no amount is proven safe" mantra. Maybe it's the same with this recommendation? The other thing not factored into inferred results is other associated behaviors. I'd bet that statistically, women that are binge drinking through pregnancy are more likely to also be taking hard drugs than their non-binge drinking counterparts. So is alcohol fully to blame here? I'm not here advocating for pregnant women and drinking. But it'd be nice to have the data and evidence behind these risks, so that people can be empowered to make their own decisions. I've seen so many women on forums stressing over a glass of wine they had at christmas, or the time they ate a cold cut without realizing. Needless stress that could be minimized if pregnant people weren't advised as if they're children. |
It's well known that pregnant women become more risk avarse, and humans being bad at risk assessment in general they tend to channel those worries in relatively unproductive ways.
E.g. worry about obscure food safety issues, as opposed to something like traffic risk, or just focusing on staying generally healthy and anxiety free.