[rayiner]

So my wife was a summer associate at a law firm while she was pregnant. The difference between having a drink with dinner and not drinking at all was the difference between being a regular summer associate, interviewing for a job, and "the pregnant one."

In our society, where drinking is an important social rite, not drinking makes you "the other" and we're tremendously eager to force women into that position based on little to no evidence that it actually has any impact on children at low levels. Even the justifications that are possible ("doctors say not to do it at all because women might drink too much") treat women like children instead of adults who are capable of evaluating truthful information from their doctors and reaching reasoned conclusions about their behavior.

[pdonis]

In our society, where drinking is an important social rite, not drinking makes you "the other"

IMO, the appropriate response to that is to fix our society's attitudes about drinking as a social rite, not to use it as an excuse for women to risk harm to their children.

That said, if the woman's job is what's going to support the child, that does add an element to the risk-benefit calculation.

[rayiner]

You're begging the question. There is no evidence of harm to children from light drinking during pregnancy. So you really have to question the motives of a policy that dictates women to engage in a behavior that excludes them socially for an imagined benefit to children.

Its one step above segregating women into sanitation tents during menstration. A policy completely disproportional to the underlying problem whose intent is social exclusion as much as anything else.

[pdonis]

There is no evidence of harm to children from light drinking during pregnancy.

What's the limit of "light drinking"? Nobody knows for sure. If the woman were making a decision about her own risk, that's one thing; but she's making a decision about the risk to her child. That makes a big difference; when you're imposing a risk on someone else, the standard should not be "is there evidence of harm", but "is the risk avoidable". The risk of drinking is avoidable, so it should be avoided.

So you really have to question the motives of a policy that dictates women to engage in a behavior that excludes them socially for an imagined benefit to children.

I question the motives of people who claim drinking is so socially necessary that it's OK to socially exclude people who don't drink, and OK to exert social pressure on women to drink while pregnant even if it might harm their child.

But that's really a red herring, because you're misrepresenting the policy--at least, the policy I've been advocating in this thread. I'm not saying anyone should force women to not drink during pregnancy; I'm just saying that, IMO, whatever imagined benefits there are to drinking are not worth the risk to the child.

[pyre]

  > There is no evidence of harm to
  > children from light drinking
  > during pregnancy

To my knowledge, there are is no evidence that taking ibuprofen during pregnancy harms the child. Should a woman then ignore the medical recommendations that she not take it?

[pyre]

  > Even the justifications that are possible
  > treat women like children

There are plenty of cases where social convention and/or the law treat adults like children. This, to me, seems like something that only happens to be aimed at women because they are the only ones that get pregnant. This doesn't seem like a social convention that is targeted explicitly at women because people believe that women have no self-control, and would do keg-stands while pregnant if we didn't hold them to task.