Doctors are being advised to record every alcoholic beverage that a pregnant woman drinks during her pregnancy.
While drinking alcohol is discouraged during pregnancy, new advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states that any alcoholic drink consumed should be recorded.
The new guidelines have been introduced to help identify babies with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). According to the NHS, FASD happens when alcohol in the mother's blood passes to her baby through the placenta, causing mental and physical problems.
Advert
The NHS explain: "Your baby cannot process alcohol well, which means it can stay in their body for a long time. Alcohol can damage their brain and body and stop them from developing normally in the womb."
The Chief Medical Officers for the UK recommend say that the safest approach is not to drink alcohol while pregnant, or if you're planning to become pregnant.
Following the new advice, healthcare professionals have been advised to "record the number and types of alcoholic drinks consumed, as well as the pattern and frequency of drinking".
Advert
Dr Paul Chrisp, director of NICE’s centre for guidelines, said: “We know children and young people with FASD often have a poorer quality of life and must overcome some incredibly difficult challenges in their daily lives.
“This quality standard aims to improve the diagnosis and care offered to children and young people with FASD as well as ensuring that women are given consistent advice about their alcohol consumption during pregnancy.
“FASD is a series of preventable mental and physical birth defects associated with alcohol use during pregnancy. Helping women to drink less or no alcohol during their pregnancy will reduce the number of children and young people affected by FASD.”
Earlier plans proposed that a mother's alcohol use should be recorded on the child's medical records too, but this has now been scrapped after backlash.
Those against the plans said the plans may have prevented women for speaking openly to their midwives and could have infringed their privacy rights.
Advert
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) chief executive Clare Murphy said: “We welcome the decision by NICE to drop proposals to automatically transfer any alcohol consumption reported by a pregnant woman to her child’s medical records.
“It is absolutely staggering that these measures, which had no basis in evidence and would have amounted to an extraordinary infringement on women’s right to privacy, were ever suggested by NICE in the first place.
“We remain concerned about the routine questioning of women throughout pregnancy on this issue.
“Our research shows women find antenatal discussions about alcohol – even when they don’t drink at all – can supersede other issues important to them, like their own mental health and wellbeing.
Advert
“Those supporting pregnant women must be able to provide care that meets the needs of the individual before them, not just to fill in boxes on a checklist.”
Featured Image Credit: Pexels