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Im reading my "What to Expect Before your Expecting" book and they say you shouldn't drink any alcohol or limit yourself when you are TTC. How valid is this and what is your opinion on it?
I read that book too, and scoffed at little at the whole "no drinking" thing. If I want to have a glass of wine, even if I am TTC, I will. I think the book is just trying to say don't go binge drinking while TTC - it's okay to have a drink or two, but don't go out and get hammered.
Plus, with as stressful as TTC can be, I would think that a girl would NEED a drink to de-stress every once in a while! :)
I've heard that drinking during first 2-4 weeks of pregnancy causes the most damage...more than drinking any other time. It's scary enough for me to avoid drinking each month from mid-cycle to period day. I do drink during the first two weeks of my cycle without worrying.
My opinion and what a lot of my friends have heard from their doctors is that the two weeks between ovulation and your missed period, you can't do much to the embryo from a few drinks. In the beginning I didn't drink much at all but it made the whole TTC seem too stressful - I didn't want to focus on TTC so much. I generally made sure to not drink a lot in those two week periods - 1-2 drinks at a time - but I didn't abstain all together. In fact both myself and quite a few of my friends ended up conceiving after a drink or two (or more!).
But def stop as soon as you know you are pregnant - once the embryo implants and starts growing the baby, the brain development gets going and you really don't want any alcohol!
The What To Expect book is often characterized as one that makes people really scared.....it took me until the second trimester to even start reading it!
@Miss Snowflake: hell yea! I get my dreaded period each month and say I WANT WINE NOW!
This seems like a crock to me. Plenty of people have conceived while drunk and/or drank before they knew they were preggo and the kids are just fine. My mom definitely drank at least once or twice (and smoked cigarettes) before she found out she was pregnant with me and I turned out just fine. I'm over the pregnancy fearmongering trend.
I know personally that once I decide to TTC I won't drink at all mainly b/c I don't want to be 1 or 2 weeks pregnant and not know it and then drink which is bad. I also just think that for people who are having difficulty it couldn't hurt to not drink. I love me some alcohol but its not good for you so it could hurt your chances is my thinking.
I have taken many classes (psychology and science) and mayb it is easy for me to say since i do not drink at all but thu u may not be causing MUCH damage but be safe and between the ovulation and taking the test or getting ur period do not drink..better safe than sorry.
I can tell u my mother smoked during both pregnancies..WAYYY less than during me and when it comes to being "smart" i win over my brother etc..now my mother regrets smoking at all...also the more research they do the more side effect u find..it does not mean she or he will be retarded..but y take a way even a little of what she could have been from him or her?
if u r not whiling to give up a few drinks..r u even REALLY ready to make the sacrifices needed to become a parent? take it as a practice round since u will not be allowed to drink at all for 9 months :)
but i believe Jenna 19 is dead on with when the most damage will be caused :)
Well, the time frame that the fetus is most damaged by alcohol is the first trimester. So, yes, it does make sense to not drink while TTC. I personally would not do anything in pregnancy that I have such obvious control to prevent.
I will probably have an occassional drink when I'm TTC because while I don't drink much now, I do enjoy a beer or glass of wine on occassion. I never have more than 1 unless it's like, a bachelorette party. And i cap out at 3-4 drinks for the whole evening. Obv i plan on avoiding those during that time frame.
From what I understand the baby isn't part of your blood supply until the second week, so by that point you should be testing positive.
Does it give you a "TTC Timeframe" in which to stop drinking?
I have read in various places why one should actively take prenatal vitamins as soon as they are contemplating pregnancy - even before the physical TTC begins. My cousin was told to stop smoking and drinking 3 months prior to the time she was "instructed" to begin TTC in order for the "toxins" to be fully released from her body.
As someone who has been TTC for almost a year and a half.... eff not drinking while TTC!! I am not a frequent drinker, but I do drink socially once or twice a month. AND I have every intention NOT to drink while preggers. I have had MANY friends get preggers while under the influence and believe me, their babies all came out perfect. I am not pregger, so if I want a beer, I will have one damnit. ;o)
My friends (and me) like to go out, like to drink.. and possibly consume more than the average person. Most of my friends have children-Some were smoking cigs or weed in addition to drinking a lot socially. As soon as they found out they were preggers they all stopped everything and all of their children have been healthy. They usually figured out between 5-6 weeks. The week before my sister found out she was (accidentally!) pregnant we were doing shots of jager until 3AM. nephew is fine. I'm not saying like drink your face off if you are trying to have a baby either. I think this is just going a little overboard.
Personally, I wouldn't take the risk. It's pretty easy to get 5-6 weeks into a pregnancy before you know you're pregnant. By that point, drinking can cause damage. With that said, however, I wouldn't judge women who chose to do things differently.
As long as you stop drinking, smoking, etc. once you KNOW you're pregnant, whatever you're comfortable with is probably ok.
I've talked about this with my doctor (were ttc now) and was told that it's fine to drink moderately while ttc. Like a lot of the girls have said, I drink all I want from the day my period starts until about midway through my cycle and then abstain until my period starts again. But my doctor told me that many, many women get pregnant and don't know it for a few weeks who go about their daily lives, drinking etc, and in most cases their babies are just fine. She says nature is pretty smart and that only recently did women become so obsessed with ttc, using ovulation kits, charting. There was a time when women just let it happen naturally!
This isn't to say it isn't healthier not to drink, but I agree with @kittyachi that there is a whole lot of fearmongering that goes on!
@ladyox: I actually believe that, just as there exists a "wedding industrial complex" there also exists a "baby industrial complex" wherein all this fearmongering causes women to obsess on every little detail of everything and spend money on all this stuff that they don't really need. Someone somewhere decided one day that there is a ton of cash in making pregnant or TTC women scared s**tless about every single thing they do. For example, that commercial they are running now about how moms can't hold their own freakin baby without getting a vaccination to prevent Pertussis (sp?) - seriously? You need to buy a vaccine to hold your own damn baby now? Give me a break. That's straight from the pharma industry.
People drank alcohol long before there were pregnancy tests to tell them two weeks into a pregnancy that they were pregnant. ;) It's smart to be moderate, because why not limit the quantity of poison you're consuming while planning to grow a human?, but to tell people not to drink at all when they're thinking of having children seems a bit overboard.
Oh my gosh Kitty are you joking? I don't have a TV, can you tube a link up here I want to see it. That's so sad.
I thought DG had a brilliant system. Whenever she was going out and knew she would want to have a drink she would pee on a stick. Sounds solid to me.
@Kittyachi: Absolutely agree! My best friend is a doula and the amount of misinformation that is out there is astounding! It never hurts to play it safe, but what is a beautiful and natural human process is quickly becoming regimented and scientific and just as much an "industry" as weddings!
PLEASE DONT!!!
My SIL drank wine while she was pregnant. Her dr. told her one glass of wine a week was ok.
Her son was born with "issues". While it can't be proven it was the alcohol, it can't be proven that it wasn't.
Why would you EVER take that chance? Is a drink really worth it? People used to smoke when they were pregnant, too, and I am living proof that that causes health issues. When you drink, your body shuts down cetain systems one at a time. Would you want your baby to be first?
This isn't the one I see all the time but it's the same thing essentially, only this time they got Felicity on board:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/872960/actress_and_new_mom_keri_russell_joins_pkids_to_launch/
OH wait...I just reread what you wrote. You are talking about TTC, not existing.
I guess as long as you are sure you aren't, it's ok. But if you think there is a chance while you are TTC, then I go back to my original response.
While I was ttc and going through fertility treatments, I was told not to drink, though they never really had an explanation.
@Kittyachi: Just a heads up - there is actually a whooping cough outbreak in CA... so maybe most of those ads are focused there? I see you're in NY though. I think you're right that there is so much fear mongering associated with pregnancy and birth.
There also appears to be increased cases in upstate ny?
I tried to see if healthnewsreview.org had anything on it, but I guess not :(
I'm not TTC, but my doctor said to "limit" alcohol during the last week of my cycle when I am TTC. I told her in general, I'll have 1-2 glasses of wine at night a few times week. She said not to be overly concerned, but to hold off on the 2nd glass of wine during that last week.
Yeah, I have heard about the outbreak in CA. I'm not saying that there aren't medical discoveries that are 100% valid that have occurred in recent years as technology and research progresses, but I think a lot of stuff we read is overkill and just ends up terrifying women.
Oh and for the record, I think that drinking while TTC = OK; drinking after you have conceived = not OK. I don't really buy into the "one glass of wine is fine" thing because (a) why even go there? and (b) who wants just ONE glass of wine? :)
My husband and I have already discussed neither of us drinking once I get off the pill. Many of my friends drank while TTC, and their babies are fine, but we just personally want to go into it on a clean slate. The plan is to let the pill get out of my system for 2 cycles before we start really trying. We have a pretty awesome vacation planned in Turks and Caicos right before the pill ends as one last hurrah. I have to say, I think it's pretty sweet that he's not going to drink if I'm not drinking, and I've been really amazed with his level of support.
That said, I think it's everyone's individual choice and totally agree with DG's approach to take a test before a night of fun.
Good Luck, Ladies!
@Kittyachi: I totally agree with the pregnancy fear-mongering complex. There is a whole system set up to make women feel like crap for every and any little thing they do, or might do, wrong. In basically every generation before ours women regularly smoked and drank and were exposed to toxins, and didn’t take vitamins regularly and did lots of manual labor – all while pregnant. Now we’re being told we’re going to be horrible people/parents if we have 1 drink while even trying to get pregnant. There has got to be some middle ground.
Once I am officially pregnant, I don’t plan to drink alcohol because I think it is a risky behavior, and I’ll try to minimize any risk to the fetus. But, I don’t think books should be making women feel guilty for having a glass of wine here and there before they are even pregnant.
On the flip side, here’s an interesting study recently done in Britain:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/light-drinking-when-pregnant-may-lead-to-calm-babies-says-study-980254.html
“The study found that boys born to the mothers who drank lightly were 40 per cent less likely to have "conduct" problems and 30 per cent less likely to suffer from hyperactivity compared to abstinent mothers, even when other factors such as family background and social class were taken into account.”
I think the idea of not drinking/smoking and generally being healthy for a YEAR prior to TTC is the health systems way of saying "you know you can mutate your embryo/sperm when you do that right?" It's the same as the pharmiceutical industry coverings their @$$es when they say NO drug is safe to take during pregnancy--advil, anti-depressants, nothing, they say this because they HAVE to. If the health care industry were to encourage it, and something went wrong..well I think you can see where I am going.
Now, I am no doctor, but I highly doubt that you could do severe damage if you're drinking lightly/on occassion., However, binge drinking or (heavy)daily drinking would be another story.
I think having a drink now and then while TTC is fine, it's when you get your positive that you should stop. ;)
You know what affects babies and can do damage?
Stress. When a mother is stressed, crying, upset, not happy - it all gets filtered one way or another to the fetus.
You know what makes people unhappy/stressed/upset? Living under a lot of restrictions.
I plan to be super vigilant in making sure I don't stress my baby out. :)
P.S. By this I in no way mean to make women who had difficult (emotionally or otherwise) pregnancies feel bad! I know my mom feels guilty about crying a lot while pregnant with my sister which I think is ridiculous, while it may have had an effect my sister is amazingly awesome. Everything affects everyone - but that's no bad thing - we're all supposed to be different.
If you don't mind not drinking at all - sure don't. If it's going to be upsetting to you to refraid from wine - I'd say it's smarter to have some.
@Arachna: I couldn't have said it better myself. Although, I am in the drinker/smoker camp, so I think I'm a little more lax in my opinions of these things.
I've had a few friends of mine in the medical field tell me that stress is the #1 worst thing for a pregnant woman, only because it's so uncontrollable. As in, you can control how much you drink/smoke while pregnant, but it's much harder to control the stress of, say, just life in general.
Well, I did drink while we were TTC - but I'm a one drink person (two on a special occasion). I stopped immediately I suspected I was pregnant.
The pregnancy fear-mongering thing is unreal. I mean, yes, I'm fine with not drinking while pregnant. I can make this sacrifice (although it's been sooooo freaking hot this last week, I would kill for a cold one right about now). A lot of my friends are foster parents, and a lot of their foster kids have FAS and all the attendant problems - I wouldn't want to be the cause of that. FAS is generally, however, the result of prolonged binge drinking. If you have a beer or a glass of wine a week after conceiving, it is not going to cause FAS! Any honest doctor will tell you that.
The list of things you're supposed to avoid ... I don't mind the common sense ones, but it's seriously out of control. What it seems to me is that by having these lists, pregnant women are made to feel both paranoid and guilty. So if they do have a miscarriage or something else goes wrong, they will think it is something they did or did not do, which is almost never the case. And of course we all know the people who drank and smoked and ate and did whatever throughout, and their babies are fine. So what happens is either women are hyper-paranoid about things they shouldn't even worry about, or they think it's ALL baloney and do actual harmful things.
I have tried to achieve a balance. I have given up alcohol, but not my daily cup of coffee. :-)
I gave up drinking while TTC. In my "preconception book" it said even 1 drink a week lowers your fertility. Luckily I got pregnant my first month of trying, so I don't know how long I would've gone with zero alcohol, but I basically haven't had anything to drink since December, not even one sip, so it's just one of the many sacrifices I think you make as a parent. However, I can't say I'm "perfect", as I need to exercise more than I do, eat more veggies, etc. etc. So, I think you have to have high standards but then not totally beat yourself up if you stay in the "safe range".
Edit: I have also heard from a Dr. that they it doesn't take FAS levels to affect the kid. They don't have a controlled study on it, but they do know alcohol reduced the IQ overall, so I thought why risk it?
While not every child whose mother drank while TTC will have problems, there are enough good studies to show that it isn't SAFE. The argument that "I know someone who drank while TTC and the baby turned out fine," are no different than, "I know someone who smoked while pregnant and the baby turned out fine." Is it possible? Absolutely. Do we know that the baby's IQ is as good as it was if the insult weren't there? No. Is there a risk of something bad? Absolutely.
i will be minimizing my alcohol to a glass or two once or twice a month only because i need to be as fertile as possible and drinking can change the way your body works... but i definately don't look down on people who need a drink everyonce in a while(espescially after the dreaded tww!!)
@Kittyachi: how funny that i was reading this post..and THAT COMMERCIAL came on down here!
I don't drink like I used to in undergrad,LOL,- but I will drink a glass when I want to now. I ONLY do it after my period comes and when I O, I stop. I mostly only drink a glass or 2 of wine, so not much, trying to lose weight anyway. :)
I didn't read any of the replies, but the MAIN reason is b/c when you do concieve... you don't know. Not right away at least. Meanwhile the most crucial period of fetal development is during the first several weeks. This is also why pre-natal vitamins are so important to take while trying to conceive. If you're trying to conceive, you should be treating your body as though you're already pregnant. Research has determined levels of caffeine and alcohol that are harmful enough to cause miscarriages and other detrimental effects, but each case is different and in regards to alcohol it is generally recommended you stay on the safe side... and stay away from it. No level has been determined safe and it DOES cross the placental barrier. Personally, the risk of FAS will prevent my drinking when that time comes!
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