Alcohol and Pregnancy: Is 'A Little Bit' Safe?

[Four Angels Standing]

WEB MD
Alcohol and Pregnancy: Is 'A Little Bit' Safe?
Find out what experts say about whether light drinking is risky when you’re pregnant.
By Jen Uscher

[quoted from article] How Much Is Too Much?​

“The problem with drinking alcohol during your pregnancy is that there is no amount that has been proven to be safe,” says Jacques Moritz, MD, director of gynecology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York." [quoted from article]
​

We've probably heard about the recent New York law that was passed? Bartenders in New York City are not permitted to refuse to serve obviously pregnant women.

Ephesians 5:18
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

From a Christian perspective, especially women, it would seem to be a very simple matter. Children are a blessing from God. We protect them at all times, even before they're born. It's part of that proactive pursuit of sanctity of life, including quality of life.

But is it?

Have you in your walk noticed that when you're meditating on a topic in your Bible study that God will show you something related in your own life? "In the world", as it were?

This topic was discussed recently and today, being in the mood for an ice cold mineral water , I stopped at a liquor store that I knew as the only place, including super high priced mini-markets, that sold it in bottles.
The store happens to be right beside the laundry mat I visit from time to time and the family that run the store are also the owners of the entire little strip mall. And they also sell extra large laundry supplies. Which is how I found out about the mineral water.
This long explanation to block off any judgments about entering a liquor store while opening this discussion.

Back to God's helping with our meditations and Bible study. Have you noticed he does that with yours?
Because today when I was going to the counter with my water a woman got there first. Very pregnant! And buying a giant bottle of Jim Beam and a two liter of Coke.

I'm standing there thinking, God, you're a funny guy.
I ask her how far along she is. Eight months! Then I gently ask if she's aware that both the CDC and NIH have released studies that state no amount of alcohol, nor any type of alcohol, is safe to be consumed while pregnant.

Let's just say charity wasn't the first thing out of her mouth.

But, if you see something , say something. Maybe God and the angels put that woman right there so I could say just that. It was worth the verbal abuse just to put that in her mind for later. "Think of your baby." Was the last thing she heard me say as she walked out the door.

What are your thoughts? Not about that necessarily but about drinking while pregnant?
If you were a NYC bartender would you refuse to serve a very obvious pregnant woman? Or would you call another bartender to do it in your stead?

I pray a pro-life group will pursue this further. How is it a matter of discrimination to intercede and prevent child abuse in utero? The abortion topic is not under discussion so please don't interject that off topic subject in order to address child abuse in utero.
This is about alcohol consumption while pregnant. Which is, by all medical professional reports, unhealthy for the baby.
Doesn't it make sense then that drinking alcohol while pregnant is child abuse?
When no amount is safe, per the professionals, isn't any amount unsafe and thus abusive?

Thoughts?

Please, a gentle request before you start to discuss this. If you're really upset just before you hit, "Post Reply", please take a deep breath, maybe more, and consider that though the Internet provides opportunity for anonymity and that can lead some people to utilize that as an inroad to textual abuse, because they are not face to face with the one they wish to verbally assault, that we are to demonstrate the teachings of Christ as we carry the Holy Spirit within us.

Ask yourself, would you say this to Christ's face?

Thank you for reading this protracted OP. I look forward to civil discussion and Christian community coming together on a very important and timely topic.
God Bless Us All.


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[PsychoeDial]

No, I don't think a pregnant woman should drink while pregnant. Seeing one who's eight months along buying Beam and Coke has two potential reasons behind it.
Either she's buying for her friends or family and is not going to imbibe. Or, she's going to drink that and prove her baby isn't her first priority.

I think the NYC decision is just further proof the worlds changing at a faster pace than in generations before in matters of losing integrity, morality, and social values.

 

[Four Angels Standing]

No, I don't think a pregnant woman should drink while pregnant. Seeing one who's eight months along buying Beam and Coke has two potential reasons behind it.
Either she's buying for her friends or family and is not going to imbibe. Or, she's going to drink that and prove her baby isn't her first priority.

It was for her. That was part of her less than charitable retort after I mentioned about the safety concern for baby.
It's her body and none of my business if she likes to relax on the weekend.
Yeah.

I think the NYC decision is just further proof the worlds changing at a faster pace than in generations before in matters of losing integrity, morality, and social values.

I was at the library yesterday checking out with Christian music CD's. The librarian was familiar with the artists and one group had even recently played at her church.
That sparked a conversation about the headlines that day and the state of the world and the changes that are happening and for the worse.
She said she thinks it's all signs that with the rapid moral decay going on in America that something is going to happen soon. She can feel it. It just feels like it's all leading to something.

I know what she means. I told her it doesn't matter what comes when as Christians we're ready for it. But I know what she means. It's like the scriptures that report of the unrighteous behaviors that caused God to act to correct the imbalance are being re-scripted in this contemporary age. And being we know what transpired in ancient times, the prognosis for future isn't good.
That old adage? Those that don't learn from the history are condemned to repeat it?

 

[ewq1938]

If you were a NYC bartender would you refuse to serve a very obvious pregnant woman?

How would a bartender know the difference a woman who is overweight and a woman who is very pregnant?

"Ma'am are you fat or pregnant?"

 

[Four Angels Standing]

How would a bartender know the difference a woman who is overweight and a woman who is very pregnant?

"Ma'am are you fat or pregnant?"

One of Whitney Houston's worst movies. But it was made in the late 90's not 2004.

 

[MoonofIsaiah]

How would a bartender know the difference a woman who is overweight and a woman who is very pregnant?

"Ma'am are you fat or pregnant?"

A bartender unable to tell the difference between a pregnant woman and a portly woman is too dumb to be trusted around flammable liquids. They should be fired immediately as a matter of public safety.

 

[MoonofIsaiah]

Psalm 127:3
Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.​

Women who love to drink are always going to be of a mind to excuse their behavior even when they're so selfish they don't concern themselves about the baby inside them. That's just the way it is.
I had a friend that wanted to stop smoking. He smoked two packs a day and he had asthma.It never made sense to me but he used all the same excuses for smoking. Then one day he decided to quit.

He called a State help line to stop smoking. He never met with anyone it was all phone counseling. They set him up on a stop smoking program using the patch system. The stop smoking patches. Expensive, of course because many of them, if not all, are manufactured by subsidiaries of the tobacco companies. They're making money hand over fist from both avenues of addiction. The addiction of smoking and the stop the addiction methods.
He was doing well after that first hurdle of days where the cravings were enormous. Then three weeks in he made the excuse that the pharmacy where he could pick up his patches, and they were always free on this State program, was out of stock!
No, they weren't. That would defeat the purpose. Also, there was a different pharmacy location he could have gone to. But he didn't. That one was out and that was it.

He started smoking again.

The same thing happens with people that care more for drinking than they do their own health. Smoking and alcohol destroy the body. They don't feed or nourish the body they destroy the body.
In the case of Christians we are told and it makes sense even if we weren't told so in the Bible. We are made in the image and likeness of our creator. When we renounce the spirit of this world and accept that fact and reach for the embrace of our Father's holy spirit and accept the truth of his son Jesus that he is truly there, loves us, and has a higher purpose for us than just living this life and partaking of the carnality of it all, we are transformed! We are baptized in the holy spirit, we receive him and his comforting guidance within us. We start to hear the thoughts of God, because we are in the mind of God as we navigate this world in the flesh with the guidance and protection of the holy spirit inside us.
That's why we're not of this world anymore. Jesus was flesh and blood. And when he was Baptized he was opened to his full divine nature like someone unlocked a door and let the channel of God's spirit fill him up. He in that way, with God's predetermined intention to make this sermon truth manifest before the witnesses at his Baptism, showed them and us who read of this what it is to be reborn in the spirit. More than flesh and blood, we are filled with the divine.

You wouldn't spray graffiti in a church or temple. It would never cross our mind to act in such a depraved disrespectful way. Not because that church or temple is holy and God. But because that sacred consecrated place is a sanctuary wherein God's spirit is re-called, and his word rings aloud to the actual church that are sitting in the pews.

The term, nominal Christian, name alone, is different from that which I've just described. That's someone who thinks Christ. Reads scripture but doesn't see the message. That's the one that , as a metaphor, looks at that spray paint graffiti in a church that someone dared do and makes the excuse that in the right light that it could be called art. That maybe God inspired that gang tag message as a new testimony for those with the eyes to see.

In my view, that metaphor is apt to describe anyone, male or female, that argues from their self-professed Christian perspective that it's perfectly OK to drink while pregnant.

It doesn't matter if they append that statement with, now and then. That they state alcohol is perfectly OK to feed a pre-born baby is what they're saying as absolute. Conditions to that are secondary. Primarily they're saying that abusing the pre-born is OK.

"When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world." John 16:21

 

[MoonofIsaiah]

One of Whitney Houston's worst movies. But it was made in the late 90's not 2004.

What a tragedy Whitney was. She professed Christ, her voice rang in the church when she was a young girl singing praises to his name. Then she became addicted to alcohol and drugs and try as she might she was never saved from that dark road. She drowned in a bathtub.

And she laid in a body bag for nearly 10 hours in the hotel room where she died because the man she looked up to didn't want her being rolled by on the way to the coroners wagon to disturb the party he was having in the same hotel. Didn't want her dead body being removed to upset the guests that already heard she was dead! He betrayed even her corpse of respect because the mood of his party took priority.
And then her daughter fell to the same addictive fate in the same manner of death. Drowning in a tub. Like the antithesis of Baptism in a way.

There's a lesson there. The fate of mother and child.

God have mercy upon them.

 

[Hetta]

Criminalizing pregnant women is stupid and will not work, as drinking alcohol while pregnant is NOT against the law. There is no such law. You can bring up child endangerment blah blah whatever, but it's not a "child" yet. Getting drunk while pregnant, or abusing drugs while pregnant is stupid, but there is no reason why a pregnant woman cannot have an occasional glass of wine while she is pregnant, and there is no law against it. That's why NYC bartenders can't refuse to serve pregnant women. They can't refuse to serve alcoholics either. I think some people would like to force pregnant women to sit inside a cotton wool cocoon for 9 months. It's something I heartily reject. I continued to run, I continued to eat foods I liked - within reason, dropped the mayonnaise because of listeria risks - but I have a bunch of extremely healthy, full weight, fully cognitive children who are in adulthood themselves now.

Pregnant women aren't a special class that to be treated like little kids and told what to eat and drink. If they do stupid stuff, they do stupid stuff. That's just the human race. Always has been, always will be. And anyone who thinks that making a fuss in a bar will stop an alcoholic pregnant woman from buying a bottle of vodka in a store and downing it in one night, is crazy. Alcoholics will always find a way. Always. How about education instead of threats and finger wagging? How about understanding, prayer and love? I get so tired of seeing people trying to control other people. It simply doesn't work.

 

[ewq1938]

One of Whitney Houston's worst movies. But it was made in the late 90's not 2004.

I never spoke about a movie nor it's release date.

 

[ewq1938]

A bartender unable to tell the difference between a pregnant woman and a portly woman is too dumb to be trusted around flammable liquids. They should be fired immediately as a matter of public safety.

That's not true at all. If A woman is heavy, you cannot perfectly tell if she also might be pregnant. Not sure if you know this but bartenders aren't physicians.

 

[Four Angels Standing]

 

[Four Angels Standing]

What a tragedy Whitney was. She professed Christ, her voice rang in the church when she was a young girl singing praises to his name. Then she became addicted to alcohol and drugs and try as she might she was never saved from that dark road. She drowned in a bathtub.

And she laid in a body bag for nearly 10 hours in the hotel room where she died because the man she looked up to didn't want her being rolled by on the way to the coroners wagon to disturb the party he was having in the same hotel. Didn't want her dead body being removed to upset the guests that already heard she was dead! He betrayed even her corpse of respect because the mood of his party took priority.
And then her daughter fell to the same addictive fate in the same manner of death. Drowning in a tub. Like the antithesis of Baptism in a way.

There's a lesson there. The fate of mother and child.

God have mercy upon them.

I join you in that prayer. Her voice was unlike any I'd heard. And the first time I did hear of her was in the Dolly Parton cover, I Will Always Love You. The range was astonishing. And even Dolly said in an interview I saw that she was blown away.

We'll never know what led her down that path but God does. I believe he shows mercy to one who knew him.

 

[Tina W]

Drinking during pregnancy is wrong and child abuse/child endangerment. No woman has any excuse to drink during pregnancy. Period. Not even a little. The child could have lifelong problems from that all because the woman could not refrain from drinking for 9 months. Allowing a pregnant woman to be served at a bar is the same as serving alcohol to a minor in a bar. If they serve pregnant women, that's like serving any other child in a bar because the baby/kid is being served alcohol when they serve the mom.

 

[ewq1938]

Drinking during pregnancy is wrong and child abuse/child endangerment.

Only if it's over drinking. If she drinks a little alcohol there is no harm done to mother or child.

 

[Four Angels Standing]

Only if it's over drinking. If she drinks a little alcohol there is no harm done to mother or child.

Please link the medical studies that show this information. That would help further your opinion.

 

[PsychoeDial]

Please link the medical studies that show this information. That would help further your opinion.

You'll be waiting for that information for a very long time because it doesn't actually exist. While information to the contrary does.
Typically it is the alcoholic that will claim drinking is OK under any circumstance. And it is child abuse to drink while pregnant. It's unconscionable unfitness that argues it is OK to abuse a child with alcohol while pregnant. The sociopath with no conscience is the personality that would resort to such nonsense. In the course of that vile affirmation they're actually saying that getting a buzz is more important than their baby.
And that is why people drink. To get a buzz. Those women that drink while pregnant are getting their baby drunk too.

The baby suffers later and for the rest of their life. And it is always mom's fault!

 

[Four Angels Standing]

You'll be waiting for that information for a very long time because it doesn't actually exist. While information to the contrary does.
Typically it is the alcoholic that will claim drinking is OK under any circumstance. And it is child abuse to drink while pregnant. It's unconscionable unfitness that argues it is OK to abuse a child with alcohol while pregnant. The sociopath with no conscience is the personality that would resort to such nonsense. In the course of that vile affirmation they're actually saying that getting a buzz is more important than their baby.
And that is why people drink. To get a buzz. Those women that drink while pregnant are getting their baby drunk too.

The baby suffers later and for the rest of their life. And it is always mom's fault!

Of course it is. Mom is the sole responsible caretaker of that baby in her womb.

I feel sorry for baby when they're born and breastfed. Women that would think it OK to drink during pregnancy would likely drink after giving birth. And that of course feeds the baby in the breast milk just as mom's drinking affected the baby in the womb.
I can't imagine being pro-life and pro-alcohol.

 

[PsychoeDial]

Of course it is. Mom is the sole responsible caretaker of that baby in her womb.

I feel sorry for baby when they're born and breastfed. Women that would think it OK to drink during pregnancy would likely drink after giving birth. And that of course feeds the baby in the breast milk just as mom's drinking affected the baby in the womb.
I can't imagine being pro-life and pro-alcohol.

Nor can I.
Have you ever looked to a search engines images for, fetal alcohol syndrome baby?
It will break your heart right in half.
NYC thinks it's a discrimination matter to refuse to serve pregnant women alcohol. What do they call it when the afflicted baby is born with FAS?

 

[Archivist]

Please link the medical studies that show this information. That would help further your opinion.

http://www.today.com/parents/new-study-shows-no-harm-moderate-drinking-pregnancy-experts-urge-t74846