One of 3 women drink alcohol while pregnant in Australia

William Atkins
Tuesday, 13 May 2008 07:43

Science - Health

Elliott also made the comparison between Australian and United States attitudes with regards to drinking alcohol and being pregnant.

She said that the attitudes in Australia are “very tolerant” when compared to America.

Although rates of alcohol consumption in pregnant women in the United States have been declining over recent years, Elliott says that in Australia, however, levels of alcohol use by young women has been increasing.

Elliott wants to make women in Australia more aware of the dangers of alcohol use while pregnant. She also wants to change their attitudes on drinking while pregnant.

During the 2008 Annual Congress, Elliott stated that alcohol use while pregnant can cause many problems with fetuses, such as stillbirth, low birth-weight, prematurity, and miscarriage.

She added that babies that are born have an increased risk of birth defects, fetal alcohol syndrome, and neurodevelopment problems when their mothers drank while being pregnant.

Elliott stated, “With an increasing trend towards binge drinking and unplanned pregnancy rates, many women are unwittingly putting their babies at risk.”

She added, “We know that high levels of alcohol early in pregnancy do the most harm; the dilemma is whether harm results from intake of low to moderate amounts of alcohol do. This is obviously difficult to determine in the human, but is supported by animal models." [Science Alert: “Need for alcohol free pregnancy”]

Besides talking at the 2008 Annual Congress, Elliott also recently took part in an interview conducted by Rebecca Baillie for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation called “Paediatricians call for foetal alcohol syndrome warnings.”

The discussion centered on drinking alcohol during pregnancy and the risks of foetal alcohol syndrome. Please click on the article to read further about the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant.