Of all of the cautionary information available to pregnant women about what they should or should not do during pregnancy, perhaps the one that is the biggest cause for concern is about alcohol.

The information is clear that alcohol should not be consumed during pregnancy – the impact is quite serious for your baby. Many women wonder whether all of the warnings should be taken seriously and how much they should be concerned if they drank before they realized that they were pregnant, which happens quite often.

Drinking During Pregnancy Is Safe

If anybody tells you that drinking alcohol during the course of your pregnancy is safe, they are not telling you the truth. It has been shown that drinking even the slightest amount of alcohol at any point during your pregnancy can have long-lasting effects on your child’s behavior, growth, attention span and emotional well-being.

The March of Dimes has a tremendous amount of statistical information available indicating that having as little as one drink per week has an impact, and the risk is very real, even before you know that you are pregnant. If you are considering trying to get pregnant or think that there is any chance of your being pregnant you should stop all alcohol immediately.

There are a variety of things that you can drink when you are pregnant that can be ordered when you are at a bar so that you won’t feel left out, and some of them are even good for your baby, like virgin cocktails that are made with fresh fruit juices.

These juices are high on every pregnancy diet list, so you can go out and have a good time, and feel good about what you are providing to your baby.

Drinking During Pregnancy First Trimester

There are many reasons that drinking alcohol is high on the list of what not to do when pregnant. In addition to the risk of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and all of the maladies and long-term effects that accompany that condition, drinking during the first trimester is one of the top reasons for miscarriage.

It also is a contributing factor to stillbirths and premature labor. Although the statistics that are available on these risks focus largely on women who are binge drinking, taking in more than three or four drinks in a night, there is evidence that any amount of alcohol puts your baby at risk.

During your first trimester all of your baby’s vital organs are being formed, and when you drink alcohol it passes directly through the placenta to the baby, who is not able to metabolize it as quickly as you do. That means that the alcohol is remaining in the baby’s system much longer than it stays in yours, and has that much more time to do damage.

Drinking during Pregnancy Can Cause

If you are ever wondering why drinking is always the first thing mentioned when discussing what not to eat when pregnant, all you need to do is look at the list of maladies that can affect your baby if you drink alcohol.

For those who have had minimal exposure the impact can be emotional, educational or behavioral, but not physically evident. For women who have continued drinking heavily during the course of their pregnancy, the alcohol that they have consumed accounts for defects that will affect their baby’s face, their heart, their ability to learn and their behavior.

It is best to stay away from all alcohol from the time that you decide to get pregnant right through until the time that you have your baby, and if you decide to breastfeed you should skip the alcohol then too.