Sexually active women who are not on birth control should
refrain from alcohol to avoid the risk of giving birth to babies with fetal
alcohol spectrum disorders, even if those women are not yet known to be
pregnant, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention has recommended.
The C.D.C. report, released on
Tuesday, estimated that 3.3 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 who
drink alcohol risk exposing their infants to the disorders, which can stunt
children’s growth and cause lifelong disabilities.
The report, which appeared
to refer exclusively to heterosexual sex, also said that three in four women
who intend to get pregnant do not stop drinking alcohol when they stop using
birth control.
“The risk is real. Why
take the chance?” Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the C.D.C., said
in a statement.
Alcohol consumption
during pregnancy has
been widely linked to stunted physical, mental and behavioral development of
children.
In October, a report by
the American Academy of Pediatrics declared that “no amount of
alcohol should be considered safe to drink during any trimester of pregnancy.”
About half of pregnancies
are unplanned, and most women do not know they are pregnant until four to six
weeks into the pregnancy, the C.D.C. noted.
The only way to ensure that the
effects of alcohol would not be passed on to a child, then, would be alcoholic
abstinence.
The suggestion of
indefinite sobriety did not sit well with some women.
“The latest recommendation
to avoid alcohol completely is obviously out of step with the way many
‘pre-pregnant’ people live their lives,” Ruth Graham
wrote in Slate, calling it “swath-yourself-in-bubble-wrap thinking.”
“Why is it that whenever
public health officials talk about alcohol, they act like they’re Puritan
robots from outer space who could never understand earthlings’ love of
distilled spirits,” Olga Khazan
asked in The Atlantic.
And the reaction on social
media sites ranged from mocking to incredulous.
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