Alcohol and fetal risk: a property of the drink or the drinker?

摘要

There has been considerable controversy during the last decades about guidelines regarding alcohol intake during pregnancy and the evidence-base for public health recommendations has been questioned (1). There are good reasons for the controversy: alcohol is one of the few recognized ter-atogenic substances. It has not been possible to establish a threshold for alcohol consumption during pregnancy, below which we know for certain that such consumption is without risk. In many western societies drinking alcohol is a common behavior, but with moral connotations. The moral battle around alcohol consumption, in general, may be the reason for the ongoing debate, a debate that furthermore interferes with concerns for the autonomy of the pregnant woman. Some have also seen it as a subject for a conflict of interest between the pregnant woman and the fetus, a position we will not consider further, as the main problem is that we do not know what standpoint to take in the interests of the fetus (or the mother, for that sake).