I just saw this map, I’m shocked . « A study by The Lancet linking drinking rates during pregnancy to rates of foetal alcohol syndrome found … Ireland came first by a considerable distance with an estimated 60 percent of mothers drinking alcohol during pregnancy. »

33 comments

  3. drive up to any maternity hospital and just take a count of how many women are outside smoking while heavily pregnant, it’s pretty disgusting

  5. I find that hard to believe. 60% suggests a sense of it being acceptable to the majority of the population which I don’t think is the case. I wonder if midwives/GPs experience would match the findings.

    Iknow judging my own social circle isn’t a scientific method but there isn’t any women I know who knowingly drank/would drink alcohol during pregnancy. The link said they used studies from 2012 to come up with their statistics so hopefully we are in a better situation now.

  6. Remember that Ireland has very high alcohol use among the general population so a lot of women are drinking in early pregnancy before they realise they are pregnant. That is the highest risk time for FAS. New laws like minimum unit pricing, restrictions on advertising and rules around sales of alcohol aim to reduce alcohol use in the whole population, which will have a knock on effect for early pregnancy drinking. I agree that more needs to be done to tackle this though.

  7. The only person I know who drank when pregnant didn’t know she was. I’m guessing this rates in the country really vary by different circles.

  9. I struggle with that number, I know scores of friends, family, peers and colleagues who have had kids in the last 5/10 years and unless they’re secretly drinking I don’t know one who has done any drinking.

  10. To be honest, I’d like to see the methodology employed. 60% sounds ridiculously high and would imply it’s generally accepted, which I don’t think it is.

    Also, the article only says something about “an estimated 60%”. Estimated how? Did they conduct interviews with GPs and pregnant women, did they just watch some Family Guy episode about the drinking, fighting Irish on repeat?

    PS: Original study published in 2017 in The Lancet
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30021-9/fulltext

    It was basically a meta study. I.e. Methodology was basically to research studies and other sources on alcohol consumption and FAS published between the mid-80s and mid-2010s.
    So no actual interviews, ie they didn’t generate any original data on their own, they extrapolated from secondary sources covering a fairly long period of time, over which alcohol consumption may have changed drastically. Ireland in the late 80s/early 90s was certainly a different place from Ireland in 2014.

    With that approach, those numbers come with a fairly impressively-sized grain of salt, IMHO.

    Edit: Typo

  11. I mentioned this in a reply but my doctor told me a glass of wine was fine while pregnant, I don’t drink wine and never drank as soon as I realised I was pregnant. But if doctors are saying it’s ok that probably goes a long way into explaining this statistic.

    Also I did drink on both of my pregnancies before I realised I was pregnant. Would I be part of the statistic? It was one time on both pregnancies but if you asked me if I ever drank while pregnant the answer would have to be yes wouldn’t it?

  12. I’m pregnant and I genuinely can’t get over the amount of women who have asked me since becoming pregnant if I have a cheeky one here and there. Same with a fag. And all who’ve asked are mothers themselves, i know two of them for sure smoked and drank when they were pregnant, not sure about the others but really it’s appalling.

  13. One you spot the facial characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome babies you won’t be able to unsee them. Plenty of people waking around with it in adulthood

  14. I would have said that i knew no one from my social circle who would consider drinking while pregnant but then remembered i have a friend who is an alcoholic and went through numerous failed attempts at rehabilitation (she’s doing well now but had a very difficult time getting to this point), going through a pregnancy at the height of her addiction. She kept her addiction hidden until it became impossible to hide, losing her job etc. There were plenty of other pregnant women attending AA type meetings over the years she was going. I know this is an extreme case but scratch the surface and it’s not difficult to find similar within many peoples circles. The 60% figure does seem very high though.

  18. FASD is much more common than ppl think, it can occur with even small amounts of alcohol early in the pregnancy. Plenty of people don’t realise theyre pregnant at first and keep up their usual drinking habits. Even though they stop once they realise they’re pregnant it can still cause FASD.

  20. I did training on this type of thing about 8 years ago. Worked in social care in addiction services. I don’t know about statistics on how many women drink during pregnancy, but what I do remember from the training was that alcohol is the most damaging to a fetus, causes most long term and permanent effects, more so than the likes of heroin.

    A baby can be weaned off heroin with no long lasting effects, but alcohol has long term/permanent physical and mental effects.

    It’s very much a lot down to education (lack of), trauma in childhood, poverty, culture. And without going down a whole homeless problem rabbit hole, the amount of families and kids growing up in hotels is just creating a whole new generation of this !!! It enrages me !

  23. Depends if you’re counting women who drink before they know they are pregnant, then I could see that percentage being true. I was hungover the day I found out I was expecting. I feel really guilty/bad about it but I wasn’t expecting to be pregnant. Thankfully I found out very early, slightly less than four weeks pregnant before baby was attached to my blood stream and before any organs started to develop so hopefully no damage caused.

    I wouldn’t dream of touching a drop of alcohol now. I’m guessing there is many in the same boat. I don’t really know anyone who wouldn’t be disgusted if they saw a pregnant woman drinking.

  27. This link is kinda broken now, but I remember reading this case at the time (the headline was different). Basically just about a chap who broke into a auld couples gaff and robbed them. Knew how to feel immediately, what a prick, right.

    https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/home/493542/laois-man-stole-dvds-and-cash-for-drugs-in-desperately-sad-case.html

    As I read on, in the last paragraph was a plea from the defence lawyer that the chap was still a minor, his parents were junkies and he’d been born with foetal alcohol syndrome and later diagnosed with adhd.

    I’ve never met him, but I think about him a lot. Pretty much every time I’m on this sub and folk are baying for harsher sentences based on a headline or questioning every suspended sentence as deluded because they know better than a judge. Like, we have so many undiagnosed cases of foetal alcohol syndrome it’s just tragic how many kids are born without a hope and will later be a headline to most who want to blame them on their own for their actions.

  28. I wouldn’t believe that at all. Unless it’s down to drinking in the first few weeks when you don’t know you’re pregnant. How would they even get this data? Who would admit to it?! #fakenews I’d say

  29. Comments are hilarious, everyone denying or coming up with excuses as to how it must be warped.

  30. Intimately linked with the anti-social behaviour problem and the fact we’ve a noticeable segment of society that are inherently unmanageable.

  31. While this number seems crazy high, if you spend a day walking around Dublin city you can see quite a few faces that make me think it might actually be that common.

  32. I worked with children with FASD for a year in Canada, mostly involved in assessment and diagnosis within an MDT specifically for FASD. Having seen first hand the consequences, I have begged all of my friends to stop drinking before they even plan to start trying for kids (and I’m the weirdo that will say that to anyone I happen to be chatting to where it’s relevant as well). It is a truly horrible and totally avoidable condition. A huge majority of young people with FASD will end up in the judicial system, for instance, or in abusive relationships. They’ve a hugely vulnerable group and there’s fuck all support for them in Ireland.

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