I certainly agree that mother's needs should be prioritised around conception and parenting and intensive mothering puts unrealistic expectations on mothers. Too often women are told what to do around our bodies and health. BUT I feel compelled to highlight the points made about alcohol in this post. It is highly irresponsible to suggest that drinking during pregnancy is safe. WHO guidelines state that no amount of alcohol is safe for anyone to drink.
It is a carcinogenic neurotoxin that affects every part of the body - why would it not impact the unborn baby? I know that Emily Oster is someone who has cherry-picked information and says drinking a glass of wine a day is OK for a pregnant woman. However, the research into foetal alcohol syndrome does not support this:
So it makes sense it would affect fertility. Dr Budds says that this can cause women to withdraw from socialising: but this highlights a much wider societal issues: that alcohol is seen as necessary for socialising and the only drug we have to justify not taking. Surely this is the issue, and this is where women - and indeed everyone - is being let down? Just because it is widely accepted to consume a deeply harmful, highly addictive drug, I don't think the answer is for women trying to conceive and women who are pregnant to drink it.
There is, thankfully, growing awareness about the harms of alcohol and more and more people are choosing to cut down or not drink at all. I think a lot of Dr Budds points are great, and love the work of Motherhood Uncensored, but I felt I had to respond to this and we are really letting women down if we continue to push the narrative that alcohol is a necessary and relatively harmless part of life. Women should be supported to make informed decisions. If they know the truth about the harms of alcohol, they can choose whether to drink it or not.
I certainly agree that mother's needs should be prioritised around conception and parenting and intensive mothering puts unrealistic expectations on mothers. Too often women are told what to do around our bodies and health. BUT I feel compelled to highlight the points made about alcohol in this post. It is highly irresponsible to suggest that drinking during pregnancy is safe. WHO guidelines state that no amount of alcohol is safe for anyone to drink.
https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
It is a carcinogenic neurotoxin that affects every part of the body - why would it not impact the unborn baby? I know that Emily Oster is someone who has cherry-picked information and says drinking a glass of wine a day is OK for a pregnant woman. However, the research into foetal alcohol syndrome does not support this:
https://depts.washington.edu/fasdpn/pdfs/astley-oster2013.pdf
The affect of alcohol on our hormones is clear, and is one of the reasons that alcohol increases women's risk of breast cancer.
https://www.breastcanceruk.org.uk/reduce-your-risk/alcohol-and-breast-cancer/
So it makes sense it would affect fertility. Dr Budds says that this can cause women to withdraw from socialising: but this highlights a much wider societal issues: that alcohol is seen as necessary for socialising and the only drug we have to justify not taking. Surely this is the issue, and this is where women - and indeed everyone - is being let down? Just because it is widely accepted to consume a deeply harmful, highly addictive drug, I don't think the answer is for women trying to conceive and women who are pregnant to drink it.
There is, thankfully, growing awareness about the harms of alcohol and more and more people are choosing to cut down or not drink at all. I think a lot of Dr Budds points are great, and love the work of Motherhood Uncensored, but I felt I had to respond to this and we are really letting women down if we continue to push the narrative that alcohol is a necessary and relatively harmless part of life. Women should be supported to make informed decisions. If they know the truth about the harms of alcohol, they can choose whether to drink it or not.