Although most pregnant women choose to abandon their alcohol consumption and cigarettes during pregnancy, some maintain these harmful habits without realizing the numerous consequences of them.
THE alcohol intake can pose a great risk to the baby healthIt is not recommended for the health of the mother. Science has not yet been able to determine how much alcohol becomes harmful, so it is preferable not to risk it. The human placenta is completely permeable to the passage of alcohol, so that the child's liver, which is still in formation, absorbs much of the alcohol the mother drinks.
Damage to the fetus may be irreversible for a variety of reasons. If in an adult organism the drink already causes havoc, for a baby the effect can be catastrophic. In addition, the liver of the fetus absorbs the substance twice as slowly as that of an adult person. This means that alcohol stays in the baby's body much longer than in the mother's.
These factors are responsible for numerous complications during gestation period, such as occurrences of miscarriage and also the worrying premature birth. According to experts, the risk of miscarriage is almost twice as high in pregnant women who cultivate the habit of alcohol consumption.
But the problems don't stop there. After birth, the child may have several types of physical and neurological changes, many of them irreversible, due to the mother's consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most frequent are mental retardation, facial changes, growth impairment and serious behavioral problems. These consequences are greater or lesser according to the stage of pregnancy in which alcohol is ingested and the amount of alcohol ingested.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 12,000 babies are born with the so-called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (SAF) every year. The number corresponds to 2.2 affected babies for every 1,000 live births.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the name given to the set of changes in the fetus caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy. It can lead, among other things, to delayed intrauterine growth, neuropsychomotor and intellectual development, as well as behavioral disorders such as hyperactivity, decreased skull size (microcephaly), facial deformities, clubfoot, cardiac abnormalities, increased sensitivity to infections. and higher neonatal mortality rate.
In many cases, the child does not have physical deformities at birth, but later on, symptoms of neurological nature occur, since FAS usually manifests until the child is three or four years old. That's why it's so important to cut back on alcohol as soon as pregnancy is discovered. This will ensure a smoother pregnancy and healthier development for this new life.
The Effects Alcohol Can Have On Your Pregnancy (April 2024)
- Pregnancy
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