How Alcohol Can Affect Your Baby During Pregnancy
No matter how you look at it, alcohol is a drug. Therefore, one must drink in moderation or even completely exclude alcoholic beverages. If you are pregnant, alcohol is especially dangerous. But do you know why? We will tell you how alcohol can affect your baby during pregnancy.
This is how alcohol can affect your baby during pregnancy
Alcohol affects the fetus directly. The alcohol that the mother drinks enters the baby’s body through the blood.
The mother’s body can get rid of the alcohol she ingests, but this is not the case for the child. The child’s body is still forming and is not ready to perform these tasks.
The presence of alcohol in your baby’s body during pregnancy can have fatal consequences. It can also lead to deficiencies and malformations, as well as fetal alcohol syndrome. It is responsible for at least 20% of malformations in the fetus.
Fetal alcohol syndrome
Children who have had fetal alcohol syndrome during pregnancy have a number of common features and problems. These children often get facial deformities. These malformations give them common features and characteristics, for example:
- A wide and flat face
- Small circumference on the head
- Wide and low bridge of the nose
- Short eye cracks
- Defects in the ears and hearing
Two phases can be observed in children who have developmental variations due to fetal alcohol syndrome: prenatal and postnatal.
Infants with fetal alcohol syndrome usually have a much lower birth weight than they should.
Brain and mental problems
It is important to observe the development of the baby’s brain. Remember that they are born with a very small head circumference. It comes into play when the child’s functional abilities develop. In many cases, it can lead to mental retardation.
The damage that occurs in the nervous system mainly affects the central nervous system. It is therefore common for these children to experience a delay in their development. This delay can result in anything from minor deviations or more severe mental retardation.
Behavioral problem
It is also common for this syndrome to give rise to behavioral problems and other diseases. Among them, one can note irritability, tremors, hyperactivity, anxiety and problems with motor functions.
Malformations
As I said, it can also lead to deformities. These can be in the heart, eyes or kidneys. They can also take the form of deformities in the extremities.
Alcohol during pregnancy is strictly forbidden
If you are wondering how alcohol can affect your baby during pregnancy and whether you can drink while you are pregnant or if you want to know if there is a safe amount, read on here.
In fact, various studies have been done, but they do not provide clear data. Although it is true that a very small glass may have no effect on the fetus, it is best not to drink at all.
Problems can occur in the baby even if the mother regularly drinks very little alcohol. Therefore, the only possible solution is to avoid alcohol altogether.
If you have not become pregnant, but are trying, your partner should also reduce their alcohol intake. According to the latest studies, it can have negative consequences if the father consumes a large amount of alcohol regularly.
If he drinks alcohol before conception, the risk increases that the future child will suffer from leukemia. This is because alcohol causes mutations in the chromosomes, causing a change in a protein associated with the onset of leukemia.
Also tobacco
In fact, it also applies to the consumption of tobacco. It is therefore important that couples who want children refrain from drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.
So now you know how alcohol can affect your baby during pregnancy. Regular consumption can also affect the baby if you are trying to conceive.
Living as healthy a life as possible will not only help you get pregnant, but also have a healthy and strong baby.
