No amount of alcohol is safe for a woman to drink during pregnancy, and there is no safe time to drink while you are pregnant.
Drinking alcohol when you’re pregnant can be very harmful to your baby. It can cause your baby to have a range of lifelong health conditions. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, preterm birth and stillbirth.
Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is linked to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) that can include birth defects and problems in how a child grows, learns, looks, and acts. The most serious of these is fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Fetal alcohol syndrome can seriously harm your baby’s development, both mentally and physically.
Alcohol can also cause your baby to:
- Have birth defects (heart, brain and other organs)
- Vision or hearing problems
- Be born too soon (preterm)
- Be born at low birthweight
- Have learning disabilities (including intellectual disabilities)
- Have sleeping and sucking problems
- Have speech and language delays
- Have behavioral problems
The good news: FASDs are 100% preventable if a woman does not drink while she is pregnant.
