It is well known that drinking alcohol is not exactly healthy. Nevertheless, a beer or a glass of wine should certainly be possible from time to time. Unless you want to get pregnant, it is important to stop drinking alcohol in time. Yet one in twenty women drinks alcohol during pregnancy. How harmful is this now? Below we explain exactly how it works.
Alcohol before pregnancy
It is best to stop drinking alcohol while trying to conceive. This applies to the woman, but also to the man. Alcohol reduces fertility. It is also possible that you are already pregnant without knowing it and in this case the alcohol you drink is immediately harmful to the baby.
Alcohol during pregnancy
It is not recommended to drink alcohol if you are pregnant. The alcohol that you drink enters your blood, and the baby will also receive this via the placenta. The baby cannot process the alcohol as well as the mother, so it is very harmful. The risks of drinking alcohol during your pregnancy are miscarriage, a premature baby, a baby that is underweight, damage to the baby's brain and organs.
Alcohol after childbirth
If you are breastfeeding, it is also not wise to start drinking alcohol again. Do you want to drink? Then wait a few hours per drink before feeding again. Alcohol ends up in the milk via the blood and of course you do not want to pass this on to your newborn.
But am I not allowed to do anything at all?
Fortunately, there are many alcohol-free alternatives on the market. You can now buy non-alcoholic wine, non-alcoholic spirits and non-alcoholic beer. There are also more and more hip sodas that make you forget that you miss the taste of alcohol. It is important to pay attention to the following difference: alcohol-free and low-alcohol. Alcohol-free (in the Netherlands, but also in most European countries) contains really 0.0% alcohol. So you can safely drink this before, during and after your pregnancy without it harming the baby. Low-alcohol can still contain a few per milligrams of alcohol and is therefore not recommended.
Source: AlcoholInfo
