State (WI) tops US for pregnant drinkers
Atlanta (AP) 4/25/97

The warnings are familiar enough: Don't drink while pregnant.

But officials are troubled by new evidence that shows women are disregarding those warnings and putting their unborn at risk of mental retardation and other problems.

"We are very concerned that this reflects poorly on women not using the knowledge available to them," said Marion Greenup, head of programming for the March of Dimes.

The drinking rates among women in 1995 were highest in WI, with IA second and PA third. WI's rate was 19.4%.

A telephone survey by the CDC found 3.5% of 1,313 moms-to-be in 1995 admitted to being frequent drinkers, Ah at least 7 drinks a week or 5 or more at once within the previous month. That's up from 0.8% of 1,053 pregnant women in 1991.

Even though those numbers seem small, that's a pretty significant increase," CDC statistician Beth Luman said Thursday.

The sample suggests that 140,000 pregnant women nationwide were frequent drinkers in 1995, compared with 32,000 women in 1991, she said.

In 1981, the U.S. Surgeon General first urged women - pregnant or planning to be - not to drink. It can cause FAS, a lifelong condition that can include retardation, facial abnormalities, stunted growth and learning disorders.

Claire Coles, an expert on FAS, said obstetricians and gynecologists need to talk to their patients about alcohol.

Anyone who is working with pregnant women should look at a 3.5 percentage and realize they should be asking women more questions," said Coles, a psychiatry professor at Emory University. "We keep talking about this, yet I'm not sure everyone is convinced drinking while pregnant is dangerous."

The CDC also said 16.3% of the pregnant women in 1995 had at least one drink in the preceding month, compared with 12.4% in 1991.

Louise Floyd, chief of the CDC's FAS prevention section, said researchers are finding some harmful effects from 3-4 drinks a week. "No drinking is safe while you're pregnant," she said.

The 1995 survey questioned 33,585 randomly selected women - pregnant or not - ages 18 to 44. Of the total, more than half said they drank at least once within the past month and 12.6% were frequent drinkers. The percentages were similar to the 1991 figures, the CDC said.

Paul Nannis, Milwaukee's health commissioner said, said the WI figures in the study were consistent with the state being a producer of beer, bratwurst and cheese.

"These industries have been important to us," he said, but heavy consumption of those products harms heath.

The Infant Mortality Project in Milwaukee, which includes a coalition of about 80 social service and medical agencies, has included alcohol warnings in its prenatal advice, Nannis said.

"We're continually working to develop better messages" to reach women, Nannis said, but added: "Old habits change slowly."