- The ARC - California Edition -

Alcohol Use During Pregnancy
Are We Being Told the Truth???

Researchers have reported that even small amounts of alcohol consumed during pregnancy can affect the fetus in damaging ways. These methodical and scientific inquiries have consistently and continually presented conclusions that a pregnant woman who drinks an alcoholic beverage is at high risk of damaging her unborn. 

They show data that the concentration of consumed alcohol that gets into the mother’s bloodstream is about the same level as in that of her fetus. 

Researchers have also demonstrated that the liver of a fetus is not capable of processing alcohol at the same rate as an adult. Thus, they project, such a fetus would very likely be born with obvious physical damage.

With all this very strong evidence that alcohol use causes birth defects of many types, why is it that mothers that are providing information to the Health Statisticians in a hospital setting do not confirm this cause-and-effect projection of the laboratory-controlled studies.

“Because they lie!” This conclusive statement was (on April 24, 2001) presented by an epidemiologist from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Routinely, right after delivery, women are currently being asked whether they smoked or drank alcohol during this pregnancy. 

The CDC National Center for Health Statistics researchers later use this birth certificate data to pinpoint nationwide trends on pregnant women’s alcohol use.

The findings of the April 2001 CDC study projected the number of women who actually drank during pregnancy was almost 20 times the number of women who admitted it when data was being obtained from them for their baby’s birth certificates.

Researchers had just finished looking at that type of data and they judged it to be so flawed that the practice of using this question and answer approach should be terminated. 

“One would like to be able to look at alcohol use during pregnancy and ask: Is it higher than we’d like?” the researchers said. “The problem is, can you trust the data?” 

Numerous controlled studies have presented information which shows that exposure to alcohol in the womb can result in a series of mental and physical abnormalities. 

A child may have stunted growth of the head and severe damage to the central nervous system including mental retardation, developmental delays, short attention span and learning disabilities.