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Nevermind what your grandmother did, there is no such thing as a 'safe' amount of alcohol during pregnancy or even conception, a new awareness campaign says.
When Sophie and her husband knew they wanted to try for a baby, she knew what precautions to take.
She stopped smoking a year before coming off contraception; started taking folate and pregnancy vitamin supplements; stopped eating pate and soft cheeses; made sure her salad was washed thoroughly; and cut down her alcohol intake with the intention of stopping entirely once she fell pregnant.
There is no such thing as a 'safe' amount of alcohol during pregnancy or even conception, a new awareness campaign says
She asked a couple of health professionals if cutting down was enough and was told 'one or two is not going to hurt' while she was trying to conceive. And when she discovered she was pregnant at six weeks, she stopped drinking altogether.
What Sophie didn't know - and what an alarming percentage of people don't - is that even a small amount of alcohol exposure in utero can be extremely damaging to an unborn baby.
One in every 13 women who consume any alcohol during pregnancy will give birth to a child with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) - a lifelong disability which can cause cognitive, behavioural, health and learning challenges and physical deformities such as abnormal head size and facial
