Back in October the "Women Win Critics Board" launched offering to deliver information and critiques of wine from a woman's perspective. I for one was very intrigued by the offer. While I sometimes wonder about the significance of the difference, there is no doubt that men and women see the world differently.
Mary Baker, of Dover Canyon Winery—a wine blogger herself—is, I believe, the mover and shaker behind the WWCB. Well, entries at the site have been sparse since October. However, when they do deliver posts, they don't fool around.
Posted yesterday at WWCB is an important article entitled "Wine & Pregnancy: Lies that Women are Told". In this fascinating post the current research on wine drinking and pregnancy is outlined. And as the title's post reveals, it appears that the informational and advisory status quo on how wine drinking affects a pregnancy might hit below the bar.
Read the article and learn what science and studies have actually determined about moderate drinking and pregnancy.
I for one can not count the number of women who I've heard say, "no, I'm not drinking during pregnancy." I don't know how many of them have been told by their doctor that they should not and how many have simply adopted the popular wisdom that suggests any ingestion of alcohol during pregnancy will likely result in not merely health problems for the child, but in all likelihood something that resembles the spawn of the devil himself. The common wisdom pregnancy is all about fear and the WWCB's article on the subject confirms this.
In the early 1990s the subject of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was showing up everywhere. The debate was over how much wine a woman could safely drink during pregnancy, if they should drink any at all. Inside the wine industry writers Jerry Mead and Gene Ford both reminded readers that no study showed any reliable information that moderate consumption was harmful. In the end, fear won the day.
Is there any motivation stronger than that act that might harm your child, alive or yet born? I think not; certainly not for a mother. It is very difficult for lay people to go out and dig up the truth when the truth is found in scientific journals buried in scientific studies. It is far easier to go with the flow. This is why pregnant women rarely drink today. Yet, imagine the woman who has done the digging and finds that the facts show moderate drinking during pregnancy does not hurt the fetus. How is she to explain to her friends who look at her with cruel aghast as she sips on a Cabernet that that her actions are not irresponsible. The pressure must be unbearable. "She's risking her child's health for he sake of a glass of wine???"
