We attended our first prenatal class at the hospital last night and it went really well. We got to watch the video on birth that the teacher said was out of date, but still worth watching.
We also talked about nutrition during pregnancy and avoiding alcohol. It seemed like all was well until someone had to mention that one study where they found that mothers who drank mildly to moderately during pregnancy had children with higher test scores later in life. Actually the guy said, "they had better children," and I actually laughed. I'm extremely skeptical of test scores to begin with because life is not set up like a test, real world skills and emotional health and communication are what will really count in the long run; not IQ tests.
The child-birth educator did say she had heard of the study but was skeptical of a self-reported study. For those of us who have taken tons of research-based classes, like me, who learn about research methods and statistics in every class, we realize that this study can't prove causation, only correlation. Meaning women in this particular study (it matters how they recruit participants too!), who self-reported (they could be lying!) consuming a small amount of alcohol during pregnancy, happened to have a child that scored higher on an IQ test (which doesn't mean later success in life!) than those who self-reported (again, they could be lying too!) not having any alcohol. Maybe there is more than one study showing this, but this shouldn't change the guideline that women shouldn't drink alcohol during pregnancy if only for the fact that we can never prove causation for alcohol producing smarter kids, but we sure as hell know what causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Anyway this guy went on to say how eating junk food is just as bad, but we don't get mad at the women who eat nothing but junk food. Someone pointed out that although junk food is bad, it probably won't cause deformities unless you get really malnourished. To which he said, "well, we don't know what causes these deformities most of the time." Which although, true sometimes, didn't stop Brent and I from laughing over the great Cheeto deformities some children get, on the drive home.
He even went on to say that he would much rather his wife have a glass of wine every once and a while than eat junk food. Jeeze, I just wanted to say, "drink alcohol if you must, but stop trying to justify it by using bad scientific inquiry and putting down my beloved junk food!"
I like how our educator put it, "it's like playing Russian roulette," meaning, some women can have just a couple drinks and see the fetal alcohol effect, while others can drink every night and not see any effect, they don't know the exact mechanism that causes it, but they do know that if you don't drink any alcohol you won't have a child with FAS. There are some studies that show being younger helps, and that first pregnancies are more protected, but it doesn't guarantee that if you are 19 and having your first baby you definitely won't get a child with FAS if you drink. And I'm very skeptical of any study that might show a benefit, especially if they show that benefit through IQ tests, which like I said before, don't count for much. FAS is more likely to affect your emotional regulation than your IQ, or I should say, it affects emotional regulation way more than IQ score. I know from experience working with adults with FAS.
My unsolicited advice to pregnant women: just don't drink at all. It's too risky. Also eat a balanced diet, but I'm guessing some junk food will not hurt you or the baby. I believe that I have gotten enough good nutrients while also imbibing in an occasional junk food item, this week I just can't get enough Nutty Bars and those have peanut butter in them, kind of, so they aren't so bad ;). And I eat them after finishing my tomatoes, hummus, and whole wheat pita bread! So there! I refuse to believe that it's OK for me to then finish my meal with a half a glass of wine instead.
Maybe someday down the road they will discover that Nutty Bars are really harmful and cause all kind of deformities and my son will be their first case study and my pregnancy diet will be scrutinized and I'll be told how awful I was for eating that processed junk. And the headline will read "Junk Food Worse than Alcohol for Fetus." But until then, I must take the side that says alcohol is easily avoided and very harmful, so we might as well not drink it while we are pregnant.
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