Ok we all know that [alcohol + pregnancy = bad] but you are not alone if you had one or two or many drinks before you knew you were pregnant.

Many women continue to drink whilst trying to conceive, especialy if they have been trying for several months to get pregnant and don’t see the point of continuing not to drink when they feel less and less optimistic about getting pregnant. A majority of women who become pregnant unintentionally will also have had one or two drinks or even a night out and a bit of a binge before they found out they were pregnant.

First let us get one thing out in the open before we get to the info… you drank before you knew you were pregnant, this does NOT make you a bad mother. Stop beating yourself up about it right now.

Ok now that that is over with let’s get on with it. The guidance on what levels of alcohol are safe to drink during pregnancy vary depending on the latest government research. One year the advice is not a drop the next the advice is a small glass of wine a day is fine in the third trimester. All research, however, supports the findings that heavy drinking throughout pregnancy can cause problems for baby.

So what to do? Well there is no denying that the most risk free approach is to abstain but if you find this too difficult or would like a drink on a special occasion then speak to your midwife and read up on the latest research.

So what if you drank a bit or even heavily before you realised you were pregnant? Well there is nothing that you can do to rewind time so the first thing you should do is stop worrying and not drink any more alcohol. There is no definitive study that has shown that drinking a small or moderate amount during early pregnancy causes any harm to the embryo. Continuing to drink has been shown to cause harm however so the most important thing you can do for your baby is to not drink any more.