At the start of this year my wife and I were met with the wonderful news that we were expecting twins. After the initial bombardment of emotions we set about finding out how our life was going to change and more importantly how we could take every effort to ensure that our babies would be born safely and grow healthily in the womb. As book reading is all a bit early 21st century we retreated to our occasionally unhealthy addiction of the Google search engine. Following a few searches along the lines of Mid-Life Crisis, Cheap holidays for 4 and How to Build the Perfect Man-cave my wife took the computer off me and got serious. Pregnant with twins, Risks of twin pregnancy and How fat will I look with twins? knocked the keyword robots for six as we raced around the worldwide web. One of the first things we looked at was alcohol. After that, we Googled, should I drink alcohol when pregnant? and were shocked to see the huge variety of different opinions. My wife and I do tend to enjoy the odd glass of wine in the evenings. Well occasionally have a bit of a weekend blowout. But what happens now? Is that late night tipple now out of the question for her? Some websites said that you could drink a bit, others said DONT whilst further sites suggested that as long as you didnt drink in the first trimester then your babies would be fine. Midwives were none the wiser and although not advocating drinking the advice was a little generalised and the decision came down to personal preference.
Now, my wife and I work for a film company called Frogspawn Creative and about this time we had the amazing privilege of working with No-Fas UK which is a charity set up to research and advise on this very issue. FAS stands for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and leads to the Disorder in babies of the same name. This disorder is caused by the drinking of alcohol when pregnant and symptoms include:
Poor growth while the baby is in the womb and after birth
Decreased muscle tone and poor coordination
Delayed development and problems in three or more major areas: thinking, speech, movement, or social skills
Problems with the development of facial features
Heart Defects
My wife set about researching a story-based short documentary, directed by Lauren Pushkin, on the risks of drinking alcohol whilst pregnant. The timing couldnt have been better as my wife trawled through masses of information and set up interviews with the leading experts in the field. What transpired was a clear theme drinking whilst pregnant has the potential to harm your baby. If you drink a lot then there is a large risk that your baby will contract FASD; if you drink a medium amount then there is a medium risk and if you drink no alcohol then there is no risk. And actually, it doesnt matter when you drink as timings vary completely depending on the mother. Right. Lets get this straight. FASD is an entirely preventable disease. So thats No Alcohol No Risk - the name of the documentary was born.
It was therefore in some shock that I read the article in both The Metro and the Daily Mail on 20th June 2012. What shocks me about this is that it not only says that drinking when pregnant is fine but also seems to actively encourage the odd binge. I can hear the walls of the NHS shuddering as I read! Publishing a story like this seems to me both irresponsible and inaccurate journalism that could potentially lead to a huge amount of mothers unwittingly harming their unborn babies Similarly, what this article doesnt talk about is that the majority of symptoms of FASD dont actually show up until the child is 7 or older. Hence, stopping the study and publishing it after 5 years is totally reckless.
Pregnancy is a hard enough time for mothers as it is. Conflicting information and articles like this achieve nothing but added confusion and stress and, as I said, have the potential to cause a lot of harm to our next generation.
My wife and I agreed (amazingly!) that we didnt want to risk the health of our unborn babies and therefore, she wouldnt drink. And (unsurprisingly!) not risking the health of her unborn babies came quite easily to her. Yes, there are so many risks with pregnancy but contracting FASD shouldnt be one of them. With 2 months to go (gulp!), we can sit happy in the knowledge that we have prevented a disorder in our children and whatever else they might contract, FASD will not be an itch that they need to scratch!
If you would like to see a full and proper study of this issue then head to the NO-FAS web site where you can also watch the documentary, No Alcohol No Risk.
Lets start getting the message out there.
Now, my wife and I work for a film company called Frogspawn Creative and about this time we had the amazing privilege of working with No-Fas UK which is a charity set up to research and advise on this very issue. FAS stands for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and leads to the Disorder in babies of the same name. This disorder is caused by the drinking of alcohol when pregnant and symptoms include:
Poor growth while the baby is in the womb and after birth
Decreased muscle tone and poor coordination
Delayed development and problems in three or more major areas: thinking, speech, movement, or social skills
Problems with the development of facial features
Heart Defects
My wife set about researching a story-based short documentary, directed by Lauren Pushkin, on the risks of drinking alcohol whilst pregnant. The timing couldnt have been better as my wife trawled through masses of information and set up interviews with the leading experts in the field. What transpired was a clear theme drinking whilst pregnant has the potential to harm your baby. If you drink a lot then there is a large risk that your baby will contract FASD; if you drink a medium amount then there is a medium risk and if you drink no alcohol then there is no risk. And actually, it doesnt matter when you drink as timings vary completely depending on the mother. Right. Lets get this straight. FASD is an entirely preventable disease. So thats No Alcohol No Risk - the name of the documentary was born.
It was therefore in some shock that I read the article in both The Metro and the Daily Mail on 20th June 2012. What shocks me about this is that it not only says that drinking when pregnant is fine but also seems to actively encourage the odd binge. I can hear the walls of the NHS shuddering as I read! Publishing a story like this seems to me both irresponsible and inaccurate journalism that could potentially lead to a huge amount of mothers unwittingly harming their unborn babies Similarly, what this article doesnt talk about is that the majority of symptoms of FASD dont actually show up until the child is 7 or older. Hence, stopping the study and publishing it after 5 years is totally reckless.
Pregnancy is a hard enough time for mothers as it is. Conflicting information and articles like this achieve nothing but added confusion and stress and, as I said, have the potential to cause a lot of harm to our next generation.
My wife and I agreed (amazingly!) that we didnt want to risk the health of our unborn babies and therefore, she wouldnt drink. And (unsurprisingly!) not risking the health of her unborn babies came quite easily to her. Yes, there are so many risks with pregnancy but contracting FASD shouldnt be one of them. With 2 months to go (gulp!), we can sit happy in the knowledge that we have prevented a disorder in our children and whatever else they might contract, FASD will not be an itch that they need to scratch!
If you would like to see a full and proper study of this issue then head to the NO-FAS web site where you can also watch the documentary, No Alcohol No Risk.
Lets start getting the message out there.
