Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Today's Good Health News

This is good news:

Many pregnant women indulge in an occasional—or even regular—glass of wine and then worry that it might put their baby at a mental disadvantage. A new study of more than 1,600 Danish five-year-old children shows that these nonteetotaler moms can breathe a sigh of relief.
Kids whose mothers had up to eight drinks a week were just as smart as their peers born to abstaining moms, according to the study, which measured brainpower in several ways. Another common concern comes from moms who had a “last blast”—a binge of five or more drinks—before realizing they were pregnant. These women, too, can breathe easy; tots whose moms had a binge episode early in pregnancy performed just as well on the mental tasks.

I haven't read the actual study, so all this should be taken with a pinch of salt (assuming your physician agrees with that.  Heh.).  

But this seems mostly common sense.  After all, women in Italy, Spain and France have drunk wine with meals for centuries.  If very moderate drinking had a noticeable impact on the fetus then we should be able to see that effect in at least those three nations.   And we don't.