One-third of pregnant women drink alcohol

UP to a third of Australian women continue to drink alcohol during pregnancy, despite growing awareness that it puts the unborn child at risk.

UP to a third of Australian women continue to drink alcohol during pregnancy, despite growing awareness that it puts the unborn child at risk.

And contrary to expectations, higher levels of education make the mother-to-be more likely to imbibe, Australian medical researchers say.

The findings are based on a national survey of 1103 women of child-bearing age in 2006 and undermine health educators' hopes that the message not to drink when pregnant has resonated with expectant mothers.

Lead researcher Elizabeth Peadon, a pediatrician at Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital, said there was no safe minimum level of alcohol for pregnant women. "All we can really say to women is the safest thing to do is not to drink during pregnancy," she told The Australian, after presenting the findings at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians' annual congress in Adelaide.

The survey, of women aged 18 to 45, found 62 per cent knew that consuming alcohol could adversely affect the unborn child. Four-fifths of respondents agreed that pregnant women should not drink. Yet of the two-thirds of the survey group who had had children, 34 per cent admitted consuming alcohol during their last pregnancy.

Dr Peadon said the study did not explore how much alcohol these women had consumed. But she was alarmed that nearly a third of those surveyed - 32per cent - said they would drink during a future pregnancy.

Dr Peadon said women who had graduated from university were twice as likely to drink during pregnancy than those who had not.

"We don't know from the study why that is, but we've got a couple of theories," she said.

"It might have something to do with the big part alcohol plays in aspects of university culture."