Drinking during pregnancy 'triples risk of premature birth'

Drinking during pregnancy 'triples risk of premature birth' - Women who drink during pregnancy are up to three times more likely to give birth to a very premature baby, doctors have warned.

Exposure to alcohol in the womb also raises the odds of the baby being born underweight.

And it increases the chance of the newborn dying shortly after birth, the study found.

Risk: Women who drink during pregnancy are up to three times more likely to give birth to a very premature baby, doctors have warned

The warnings come from Irish researchers, who questioned more than 60,000 new mothers in Dublin about how much they drank around the time of conception and in the first weeks of pregnancy.

Some 81 per cent admitted to having drunk some alcohol – with heavy drinking linked to unplanned pregnancies.

Heavy drinkers – those who got through at least 20 units of alcohol a week, or one large glass of wine a day during pregnancy – ran three times as high a risk as the tee-totallers of giving birth very prematurely.

Their babies were also around 50 per cent more likely to be born very underweight and to die around the time of birth, the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth reports.

Baby blues: Exposure to alcohol in the womb also raises the odds of the baby being born underweight (posed by model)

The researchers reported three cases of foetal alcohol syndrome, a condition which sees alcohol in the womb cause a range of problems, from facial abnormalities and stunted growth to learning difficulties and hyperactivity.

One of these cases involved a baby born to a light drinker.

The Trinity College Dublin researchers said: ‘Further research is required specifically addressing the effects of low alcohol intake in pregnancy before it can be considered safe.’

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence advises women to avoid alcohol in the first three months of pregnancy. The Department of Health urges expectant mothers to abstain totally. ( dailymail.co.uk )