[dalke]

Can you really speak with such authority about all of Europe?

In Sweden, where I live, alcohol and pregnancy are not suppose to mix. For example, translating from http://www.vardguiden.se/Tema/Gravid/Livsstilsfragor/Alkohol... : "Since no one knows where the border lies, the recommendations in Sweden and many other countries are to not drink alcohol at all during pregnancy."

Or translating from http://www.lakartidningen.se/07engine.php?articleId=12235: "It's been known for a long time that alcohol consumption during pregnancy can damage the fetus, and most women also stop drinking alcohol when they discover that they are pregnant."

I'm lead to believe that the other Nordic countries are similar.

[raverbashing]

You're right, that's the recommendation

But about this I'm not so sure: "most women also stop drinking alcohol when they discover that they are pregnant."

[dalke]

Just like I and others are "not so sure" about your original statement.

Again I ask, how well can you claim to speak for the entirety of Europe? My observation is that Nordic women abstain from drinking during pregnancy at least as often as women who are native born to the US.

What would you accept as evidence that your original statement is incorrect? Perhaps the journal article "Alcohol consumption among pregnant women in a Swedish sample and its effects on the newborn outcomes", which finds: "Before pregnancy, 89% of the women regularly consumed alcohol and 49% reported occasional or frequent binge drinking. Nicotine was used by 15% before and by 5% during pregnancy. During pregnancy, 12% continued using alcohol and 5% also admitted binge drinking." ?

Compare this to the statement in "FOCUS ON: Biomarkers Of Fetal Alcohol Exposure And Fetal Alcohol Effects", which says that "roughly one of every eight women in the United States continues to drink during her pregnancy". 16% is higher than 12%, though I don't know the error bars to tell if that's significant.

If you don't like self-reported tests, then perhaps "Measurement of direct ethanol metabolites suggests higher rate of alcohol use among pregnant women than found with the AUDIT—a pilot study in a population-based sample of Swedish women" is useful. It concludes "Twenty-six women (25.2%) were identified as possible alcohol consumers by the combined use of AUDIT and direct ethanol metabolites."? (Note though that hair cosmetics and other things can cause false positives in a direct metabolites test.)

I interpret this to mean that 75% of Swedish women certainly do not drink alcohol while pregnant.

In other words, it's very easy in Sweden to find women who don't drink while pregnant.

Then for Germany, in "Smoking, alcohol and caffeine consumption of mothers before, during and after pregnancy--results of the study 'breast-feeding habits in Bavaria" the researchers report "25.3% of the mothers reported any alcohol consumption during pregnancy, 69.0% of pregnant women were drinking caffeine-containing beverages. The consumption rates were reduced clearly during pregnancy."

And for France, in "Is pregnancy the time to change alcohol consumption habits in France?" reports that "A total of 52.2% of women indicated that they had consumed alcohol at least once during their pregnancy".

Why did you make such a large, encompassing statement about all of Europe, when (1) there is such a variable rate, depending on the country, and (2) it looks like better than even odds that a 'European' woman does not drink once she knows she's pregnant.

[polymatter]

I agree with your broad argument, but it isn't clear to me if you are referencing actual studies. If you are, please at least state how you are finding them and/or the journals in which they are published so that others can do so too.

[foobarbazqux]

They're article titles, Google finds them easily.

[dalke]

Yeah, I thought the part where I said "journal article" sufficed, and that a trivial Google search would verify all of them. For what it's worth, I found the papers through PubMed searches.

I'm surprised sometimes the lengths people will go through in order to not admit they can be wrong.

[bjourne]

You're just wrong. Of the Swedish mothers I know, they all stopped drinking when they became aware of their pregnancy. Any mother who didn't would be seen as a skank and probably would even be denied wine if she ordered it at restaurants. The general sentiment is that drinking/smoking/drugging pregnant women are trash.