Drinking alcohol while pregnant

Experts are still unsure exactly how much, if any, alcohol is completely safe for you to have while you're pregnant, so the safest approach is not to drink at all while you're expecting.

Is it safe to drink alcohol when pregnant?

The Chief Medical Officers for the UK recommend that if you’re pregnant, or planning to become pregnant, the safest approach is not to drink alcohol at all, to keep risks to your baby to a minimum.

Drinking in pregnancy can lead to long-term harm to the baby, with the more you drink the greater the risk.

How does alcohol affect my unborn baby?

When you drink, alcohol passes from your blood through the placenta and to your baby. A baby's liver is one of the last organs to develop and doesn't mature until the latter stages of pregnancy. Your baby cannot process alcohol as well as you can, and too much exposure to alcohol can seriously affect their development.

In addition to the risk of miscarriage, more recent research found that drinking, particularly in the first three months of pregnancy, also increases the risk of premature birth and low birthweight.

Should you choose to drink after the first three months of your pregnancy, consuming alcohol carries risks of affecting your baby after they're born. The risks are greater the more you drink. The effects include learning difficulties and behavioural problems.

Drinking heavily throughout pregnancy can cause your baby to develop a serious condition called foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Children with FAS have:

• poor growth
• facial abnormalities
• learning and behavioural problems

Drinking less heavily, and even drinking heavily on single occasions, may be associated with lesser forms of FAS. The risk is likely to be greater the more you drink.

How to avoid alcohol in pregnancy

It may not be as difficult as you think to avoid alcohol completely for nine months, as many women go off the taste of alcohol early in pregnancy. Most women do give up alcohol once they know they are pregnant or when planning to become pregnant.

Women who find out they are pregnant after already having drunk during early pregnancy should avoid further drinking. However, they should not worry unnecessarily, as the risks of their baby being affected are likely to be low. If they are concerned, they should consult their doctor or midwife.

What is a unit of alcohol?

If you do decide to drink when you’re pregnant, it's important to know how many units you are consuming.

One UK unit is 10 millilitres (ml) – or eight grams – of pure alcohol. This is equal to:  

• half a pint of beer, lager or cider at 3.5% alcohol by volume (ABV: you can find this on the label)
• a single measure (25ml) of spirit, such as whisky, gin, rum or vodka, at 40% ABV
• half a standard (175ml) glass of wine at 11.5% ABV

You can find out how many units there are in different types and brands of drinks with the Drinkaware unit and calorie calculator. 

If you have an Android smartphone, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can download the free Change4Life Drinks Tracker from Google Play or the iTunes App Store. It allows you to keep a drinks diary and get feedback on your drinking.

Read more about alcohol units.

Alcohol support services

If you have difficulty cutting down what you drink, talk to your midwife, doctor or pharmacist.

Confidential help and support is also available from local counselling services:

• Drinkline is the national alcohol helpline. If you're worried about your own or someone else's drinking, call this free helpline on 0300 123 1110 (weekdays 9am - 8pm, weekends 11am - 4pm)
• Addaction is a UK-wide treatment agency that helps individuals, families and communities to manage the effects of alcohol and drug misuse.
• Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a free self-help group. Its "12-step" programme involves getting sober with the help of regular support groups.
• Find your nearest alcohol support services.

Read more

The risks of drinking too much

Regularly drinking more than 14 units a week risks damaging your health.

Fourteen units is equivalent to six pints of average strength beer or 10 small glasses of low strength wine.  

New evidence around the health harms from regular drinking have emerged in recent years.

There is now a better understanding of the link between drinking and some illnesses, including a range of cancers.

The previously held position that some level of alcohol was good for the heart has been revised. It is now thought that the evidence on a protective effect from moderate drinking is less strong than previously thought.

Low risk drinking advice

To reduce the risk of harming your health if you drink most weeks:

• men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week
• spread your drinking over three days or more if you drink as much as 14 units a week

Pregnant women or women trying to conceive should avoid alcohol altogether. Read more on pregnancy and alcohol.

No 'safe' drinking level

If you drink less than 14 units a week, this is considered low risk drinking.

It is called "low risk" rather than "safe" because there is no safe drinking level.

The type of illnesses you can develop after 10 to 20 years of regularly drinking more than 14 units a week include:

• cancers of the mouth, throat and breast
• stroke
• heart disease
• liver disease
• brain damage
• damage to the nervous system

The effects of alcohol on your health will depend on how much you drink. The less you drink, the lower the health risks.

Read about alcohol units to work out how much alcohol there is in your drinks.

'Single session' drinking

Drinking too much too quickly on a single occasion can increase your risk of injuries and accidents, such as:

• head injuries
• fractures
• facial injuries
• scarring
• alcohol poisoning
• heart disease

To reduce your health risks during a single drinking session:

• limit how much you drink 
• drink more slowly
• drink with food
• alternate with water or non-alcoholic drinks

Read more

Tips on cutting down

If you regularly drink more than 14 units a week, try these simple tips to help you cut down.

Make a plan
Before you start drinking, set a limit on how much you’re going to drink.

Set a budget
Only take a fixed amount of money to spend on alcohol.

Let them knowIf you let your friends and family know you’re cutting down and that it’s important to you, you could get support from them.

Take it a day at a timeCut back a little each day. That way, every day you do is a success.

Make it a smaller one
You can still enjoy a drink but go for smaller sizes. Try bottled beer instead of pints, or a small glass of wine instead of a large one.

Have a lower-strength drink
Cut down the alcohol by swapping strong beers or wines for ones with a lower strength (ABV in %). You'll find this information on the bottle.

Stay hydrated
Drink a pint of water before you start drinking, and don't use alcohol to quench your thirst. Have a soft drink instead.

Take a break
Have several drink-free days each week.

You may be surprised to find out how much you actually drink. Print adrinks diary  to track your drinking over a week. 

Benefits of cutting down

The immediate effects of cutting down include:

• feeling better in the mornings
• being less tired during the day
• your skin may start to look better
• you’ll start to feel fitter
• you may stop gaining weight

Long-term benefits include:

Mood
There’s a strong link between heavy drinking and depression, and hangovers often make you feel anxious and low. If you already feel anxious or sad, drinking can make this worse, so cutting down may put you in a better mood generally.

SleepDrinking can affect your sleep. Although it can help some people fall asleep quickly, it can disrupt your sleep patterns and stop you from sleeping deeply. So cutting down on alcohol should help you feel more rested when you wake up.

BehaviourDrinking can affect your judgement and behaviour. You may behave irrationally or aggressively when you’re drunk. Memory loss can be a problem during drinking and in the long term for regular heavy drinkers.

Heart
Long-term heavy drinking can lead to your heart becoming enlarged. This is a serious condition that can’t be completely reversed, but stopping drinking can stop it getting worse.

Immune system
Regular drinking can affect your immune system. Heavy drinkers tend to catch more infectious diseases.

Read more

Alcohol units

We're supposed to be keeping an eye on how much we drink, but how many of us really know what a unit of alcohol is?

With so many different drinks and glass sizes, from shots to pints – not to mention bottles – it's easy to get confused about how many units are in your drink.

Use this quick guide to work out how many units are in your favourite pint of beer or glass of wine.

The idea of counting alcohol units was first introduced in the UK in 1987 to help people keep track of their drinking.

Units are a simple way of expressing the quantity of pure alcohol in a drink. One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol, which is around the amount of alcohol the average adult can process in an hour. This means that within an hour there should be, in theory, little or no alcohol left in the blood of an adult, although this will vary from person to person.

The number of units in a drink is based on the size of the drink as well as its alcohol strength. For example, a pint of strong lager contains 3 units of alcohol, whereas the same volume of standard lager has just over 2 units.

Knowing your units will help you stay in control of your drinking. To reduce your risk of harming your health if you drink most weeks:

• men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week
• spread your drinking over three days or more if you drink as much as 14 units a week

Fourteen units is equivalent to six pints of average strength beer or 10 small glasses of low strength wine.

Calculating units

Using units is a simpler way of representing a drink's alcohol content – usually expressed by the standard measure ABV, which stands for alcohol by volume.

ABV is a measure of the amount of pure alcohol as a percentage of the total volume of liquid in a drink.

You can find the ABV on the labels of cans and bottles, sometimes written as "vol" or "alcohol volume" or you can ask bar staff about particular drinks.

For example, wine that says "12% ABV" or "alcohol volume 12%" means that 12% of the volume of that drink is pure alcohol.

You can work out how many units there are in any drink by multiplying the total volume of a drink (in ml) by its ABV (which is measured as a percentage) and dividing the result by 1,000.

• Strength (ABV) x volume (ml) ÷ 1,000 = units.

For example, to work out the number of units in a pint (568ml) of strong lager (ABV 5.2%):

• 5.2 (%) x 568 (ml) ÷ 1,000 = 2.95 units

For a quicker method, use Alcohol Concern's unit calculator.

Drinks and units

A 750ml bottle of red, white or rosé wine (ABV 13.5%) contains 10 units.

See the guide below to find out how many units are in your favourite tipple.

*Gin, rum, vodka, whisky, tequila, sambuca. Large (35ml) single measures of spirits are 1.4 units.

Read more

Hangover cures

Splitting headaches, sickness, dizziness, dehydration: anyone who's ever drunk too much knows the consequences of it.

Alcohol is a diuretic (meaning it removes fluids from the body), so drinking too much can lead to dehydration. Dehydration is what causes many of the symptoms of a hangover.

Alcohol can upset your stomach and give you a bad night's sleep. You may still have some alcohol in your system the next morning. 

Cure myth

Hangover cures are generally a myth. There are no cures for a hangover. There are tips for avoiding hangovers and for easing the symptoms if you have one.

The best way to avoid a hangover is not to drink. If you decide to drink:

• limit how much you drink in single session
• drink more slowly
• drink with food
• alternate with water or non-alcoholic drinks

To avoid a hangover, don't drink more than you know your body can cope with. If you're not sure how much that is, be careful. 

To reduce the risk of harming your health if you drink most weeks:

• men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week
• spread your drinking over three days or more if you drink as much as 14 units a week

Know your units

You can keep track of how many units you're consuming using theChange4Life Drinks Tracker app available from iTunes and Google Play. 

A large glass of wine, for instance, contains around three units. In one evening, that can quickly add up to a lot more than you intended to drink. Here are some examples:

• a can of standard lager, beer or bitter – 1.8 units 
• a pint of standard lager, beer or bitter – 2.3 units
• a small glass of wine (125ml) – 1.5 units
• a large glass of wine (250ml) – 3 units 
• a measure of spirits (25ml) – 1 unit  

Follow these tips to keep hangovers away:

• Don't drink on an empty stomach. Before you go out, have a meal that includes carbohydrates (such as pasta or rice) or fats. The food will help slow down the body's absorption of alcohol.
• Don't drink dark-coloured drinks if you've found that you're sensitive to them. They contain natural chemicals called congeners (impurities), which irritate blood vessels and tissue in the brain and can make a hangover worse.
• Drink water or non-fizzy soft drinks in between each alcoholic drink. Carbonated (fizzy) drinks speed up the absorption of alcohol into your system.
• Drink a pint or so of water before you go to sleep. Keep a glass of water by the bed to sip if you wake up during the night. 

The morning after

If you wake up the next morning feeling terrible, you probably didn't follow this advice. Although there are no real cures for hangovers, there are ways to ease the symptoms.

Treatment involves rehydrating the body so it can deal with the painful symptoms (though the best time to rehydrate is before going to sleep).

Over-the-counter painkillers can help with headaches and muscle cramps. Paracetamol-based remedies are usually preferable, as aspirin may further irritate the stomach and increase nausea and sickness.

Sugary foods may help you feel less trembly. In some cases, an antacid may be needed to settle your stomach first.

Bouillon soup, a thin vegetable-based broth, is a good source of vitamins and minerals, which can top-up depleted resources. Its main advantage is that it's easy for a fragile stomach to digest.

You can replace lost fluids by drinking bland liquids that are easy on the digestive system, such as water, soda water and isotonic drinks (available in most shops).

"Hair of the dog" (drinking more alcohol) does not help. Drinking in the morning is a risky habit, and you may simply be delaying the appearance of symptoms until the alcohol wears off again.

If you've had a heavy drinking session, hangover or not, doctors advise that you wait at least 48 hours before drinking any more alcohol, to give your body tissues time to recover. Sometimes, of course, a hangover makes that advice easier to follow.

Read more

How long does alcohol stay in your blood?

On average, it takes about one hour for your body to break down one unit of alcohol. However, this can vary, depending on:

• your weight
• whether you're male or female
• your age
• how quickly or slowly your body turns food into energy (your metabolism)
• how much food you have eaten
• the type and strength of the alcohol
• whether you're taking medication and, if so, what type

It can also take longer if your liver isn't working normally.

Read more about drinking and alcohol.

How much is one unit?

One unit is equivalent to 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol. There are roughly:

• 2.1 units in a standard glass (175ml) of average-strength wine (12%)
• 3 units in a large glass (250ml) of average-strength wine (12%)
• 2 units in a pint of low-strength lager, beer or cider (3.6%)
• 3 units in a pint of higher-strength lager, beer or cider (5.2%)
• 1 unit in a single measure of spirits (25ml)

Adding up your units

If you drink a large (250ml) glass of wine, your body takes about three hours to break down the alcohol.

If you drink one pint of beer, your body takes about two hours to break it down. One pint of strong lager is equivalent to three units, so this will take longer.

However, this time can vary, depending on the factors mentioned above.

If you have a few drinks during a night out, it can take many hours for the alcohol to leave your body. The alcohol could still be in your blood the next day.

This means that if you drive the day after an evening of drinking, you could be over the legal alcohol limit. For more information, see How much alcohol can I drink before driving?

Know your units

To reduce the risk of harming your health if you drink most weeks:

• men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week
• spread your drinking over three days or more if you drink as much as 14 units a week

Read more

Calories in alcohol

Did you know a standard glass of wine can contain as many calories as a piece of chocolate, and a pint of lager has about the same calorie count as a packet of crisps?

The average wine drinker in England takes in around 2,000kcal from alcohol every month.
Drinking five pints of lager a week adds up to 44,200kcal over a year, equivalent to eating 221 doughnuts.
Many drinkers add to their calorie count by having snacks, such as crisps, nuts or pork scratchings, to accompany their tipple.
A heavy drinking session is often followed by an unhealthy breakfast to help cope with a hangover, which again helps to pile on the pounds.
Going for a fry-up instead of your usual bowl of cereal can add an extra 450kcal to the calorie count from the night before.
The findings are based on an online survey of nearly 2,000 adults in England in March 2009 by YouGov for the Department of Health.

Regularly drinking more than the NHS recommends can have a noticeable impact on your waistline as well as cause less obvious but more serious health problems.

Many women don’t realise that two large glasses of white wine not only puts them over the recommended daily limit for regular alcohol consumption, but also provides them with nearly 20% of their recommended daily calorie intake, at approximately 370kcal in total.

Most people would baulk at consuming a full glass of single cream, but wouldn’t think twice about the calorie content of a couple of pints. But the calorie content is similar and, over time, excess alcohol intake can easily contribute to gaining weight.

Wine, beer, cider, spirits and all our favourite drinks are made from natural starch and sugar. Fermentation, and distillation for certain drinks, is used to produce the alcohol content. This helps explain why alcohol contains lots of calories – seven calories a gram in fact, almost as many as a gram of fat. And, of course, additional calories can be present in added mixer drinks.

Tips to avoid weight gain

To reduce the chances of gaining weight from drinking alcohol, follow these tips from the British Nutrition Foundation:

• Men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week, which is equivalent to six pints of average strength beer or 10 small glasses of low strength wine.
• Alternate an alcoholic drink with a glass of water – this will help to prevent you becoming dehydrated.
• Don’t drink on an empty stomach. If you do reach for snacks while drinking, opt for a healthier option – choose a sandwich instead of crisps or chips, or choose a chicken burger without mayonnaise instead of a kebab with garlic sauce.
• Drinking in rounds can mean you end up drinking more than you intended. Opt out and drink at your own pace.
• Try cutting down with a friend, as you’ll be more likely to stick to it with moral support.
• Eat a healthier dinner before you start drinking. Order or cook before you start drinking so you’re not tempted to go for the less healthy options.
• Pace yourself by taking small sips.
• Avoid "binge drinking" – it is not advisable to "save up" your units to splurge at the weekend.
• If you’re drinking white wine, why not add a splash of soda water to help the same number of units last longer?

For more help on reducing your alcohol intake, read Tips on cutting down.

How many calories are in your drink?

With a pint of beer the same as a packet of crisps, and a standard bottle of alcopop the same as three teacakes, the calories from alcohol soon add up.

Calories in alcohol*

Drink	Calories (kcal)	Food equivalent
A standard glass (175ml) of 12% wine	126kcal	1 Cadbury Heroes miniature bar
A pint of 5% strength beer	215kcal	1 packet of McCoy's salted crisps
A glass (50ml) of (17%) cream liqueur	118kcal	1 Milky Way bar
A standard bottle (330ml) of 5% alcopop	237kcal	3 Lees teacakes
A double measure (50ml) of 17.5% fortified wine	65kcal	1 Asda bourbon biscuit

Read more