How does drinking alcohol during pregnancy affect your baby’s health?
When you drink alcohol while pregnant, it enters your bloodstream and swiftly travels to your baby via the placenta and umbilical cord. The placenta develops in your uterus (womb) and provides nourishment and oxygen to the baby via the umbilical cord.
Drinking alcohol while pregnant can result in major health issues for your kid, including:
- Premature birth: When your kid is born before the 37th week of pregnancy. Premature newborns might have major health issues both at birth and later in life.
- Birth defects: Birth defects are present at birth and impact the appearance or function of one or more body parts. They can have an impact on overall health, how the body develops, and how the body functions. Birth defects include hearing loss, heart difficulties, and cleft lip.
- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (also called FASDs): FASDs can cause a variety of issues in children, including intellectual and developmental difficulties. These can lead to issues with:
- Physical advancement
- Learning
- Communicating
- Daily self-care activities such as dressing, cleaning teeth, and meal preparation
- Behavior
- Low birth weight: (also known as LBW). When a baby is born weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces, he or she is labelled low birth weight.
- Miscarriage: When a baby dies in the womb before 20 weeks of pregnancy, it is called a miscarriage.
- Stillbirth: When a baby dies in the womb after 20 weeks of pregnancy, this is referred to as a stillbirth.