Call for clearer advice for pregnant women

Published on Saturday 21 June 2008 00:31

WOMEN are being given mixed messages about diet and alcohol during pregnancy, causing unnecessary anxiety, doctors have warned.

Dr Sally Winning, a psychiatrist in Aberdeen, will tell a British Medical Association conference next month that clearer and more consistent advice is needed for women both before and during pregnancy.

She said that one option might be to include information on antenatal wellbeing in pregnancy testing kits.

Dr Winning said: "We had this situation last year where I knew of sensible, normal women who were pregnant and were following the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE] guidance that it was safe to drink one to two units of alcohol once or twice a week.

"Then, in the middle of their pregnancies, you get this new guidance that the safe limit is nothing at all.

"They were being told that the advice they had been given was not safe for their babies and that is very upsetting."

Dr Winning also said women were told that fatty acids were good during pregnancy. However, these are often taken in the form of cod liver oil, which can contain vitamin A – high levels of which are harmful in pregnancy.

"There is a lot of information available to women on the internet and in magazines, but a lot of it is conflicting and we should be making sure that women are getting the best advice available," she said.

The doctor called for experts from medical bodies to put together clear advice for pregnant women.

She also said such information could be included in pregnancy testing kits.

"The first thing a woman may know she is pregnant is when she misses her period and goes for a pregnancy testing kit.They then go to their GP but that could be eight weeks after their last period and a lot is happening in those weeks in terms of the baby developing."

"Maybe we could be giving out information with pregnancy testing kits, getting together the best possible advice from the experts and giving this to women."

Belinda Phipps, the chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, agreed that the advice given to women could be conflicting.

"What we need to be doing is giving women information, based on the best available evidence, so they can make up their own mind about their diet and lifestyle during pregnancy," she said.