The Center for Disease Control (CDC) Vital Signs released a report on Feb. 2, stating that there are about 3.3 million pregnant women ranging from 15 to 44 who are exposed to alcohol and whose unborn child are at risk of experiencing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
Some of these expecting mothers were not even aware that they are having a baby and it is one of the reasons they have been drinking. The CDC Vital Signs also added that these women are exposed to alcohol because some of them are sexually active and are not on birth control. These activities go hand in hand with drinking alcohol. They based their report on a data that they gathered back from 2011 to 2013 from the National Survey of Family Growth.
In an article published by PR News Wire, they said that there are even women who still won't refrain from drinking alcohol if they want to get pregnant really quick. They still do it right after they decided to stop with their birth control.
It is such an alarming rate because the effect of alcohol to a developing fetus could cause a lifetime of physical, mental and behavioral disabilities to the child. It doesn't matter whether the mother has only been drinking for the first few weeks of her pregnancy, the effects on the child could still occur.
Doctors also say that no amount of alcohol would be safe for any woman to drink while they are pregnant whether they are on their early or last stage of their pregnancy. The safest thing to do to prevent exposure to alcohol is to make it a point to do a pregnant test every now and then if a woman is sexually active. It is also suggested to stop drinking alcohol as soon as a woman decides to stop using any birth control.
