Raising Awareness of Danger of Alcohol to Fetus

Raising Awareness of Danger of Alcohol to the Fetus

PRESS RELEASE
21 MARCH 2007

The Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) says health advisory labels on alcohol bottles are a good way to raise awareness of the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant,” says ALAC Chief Executive Officer Gerard Vaughan.

Mr Vaughan was reacting to comments by New Zealand Winegrowers and the Wine Institute that health advisory labels were “overkill” and would not work.

“While alcohol consumption in pregnancy has the potential to harm the fetus at all stages of pregnancy, it is still a commonly held belief in both New Zealand and Australia that it is acceptable to have ‘a couple of drinks, a couple of times a week’,” he says.

“There is also a belief that a woman has to be an alcoholic or a binge drinker to cause harm to the fetus,
Such views are completely wrong.”

A Ministry of Health paper released last year said babies born to mothers who had as little as one drink a week during pregnancy could show altered behaviours, and those whose mothers had one alcoholic drink a day may have reduced cognitive skills.

While it was well-known that babies from women who drank heavily at critical periods of fetal development could suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome, with facial deformities and retarded growth and brain development, it was now recognised there was a wide set of effects from lower-level alcohol use.

“Many women do not know of this risk, or, if they do, could benefit from a reminder of the risk at the time of planning to drink alcohol. While no-one is suggesting warning labels on their own can change behaviour, however, delivering the message repeatedly and in a number of ways, of which labelling is one, will raise awareness of the danger of alcohol to the fetus.”

ENDS

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