A new study revealed that one in ten pregnant women in the United States admit to occasionally drinking alcohol while one third of whom said they also binge drink.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the report which revealed that one in ten pregnant women consumed alcohol in the past 30 days and one in 33 reported binge drinking.
The study defined binge drinking as consuming four or more drinks on one occasion. About one third of the pregnant women who consumed alcohol confessed binge drinking which is a similar rate to non-pregnant women.
It was also found out that pregnant women reported a higher frequency of binge drinking of the women who reported of doing so. The study assumed this could be because women who binge drink during pregnancy are more dependent on alcohol, therefore will bringe drink more.
Drinking through pregnancy could cause adverse health effects for the baby which include Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. By far, there is no known safe amount of alcohol to consume during the prenatal period.
"We know that alcohol use during pregnancy can cause birth defects and developmental disabilities in babies, as well as an increased risk of other pregnancy problems, such as miscarriage, stillbirth, and prematurity," director of CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Coleen Boyle said to NBC. "This is an important reminder that women should not drink any alcohol while pregnant. It's just not worth the risk."
Economist Emily Oster also expressed her side on the data about binge drinking and said it is "of tremendous concern." "Binge drinking during pregnancy is quite bad and something we need to address," she told New York Daily News.
A survey of more than 200,000 women taken from 2011 to 2013 was the basis of the study. More than 8,000 of whom were pregnant at the time.
