Should pubs ,shops be allowed to sell drink to pregnant women?

TequilaMockingBird · 05-02-2008 07:51PM

Slow Motion wrote: »

I don't know about a rational response, what about a rational post? I am not a parent, I do not have a womb! Do I not have the right to have an opinion?

This is a discusssion forum, so yes you are entitled to an opinion. As am I.

Do you think that the "abuse" these children get while in the womb, will suddenly stop when they come out.

I smoked while pregnant, I also had the occasional drink. I have a brilliant gorgeous child, she is perfectly healthy and on a par with social and educational standards for her age. I would rather I didn't smoke but I did. Should I have been pulled up at the counter and have some teenager tell me what I can or cannot buy? If I went for dinner and was having a glass of wine, should the waiter tell me I cannot have that glass of wine?

Kernel32 · 05-02-2008 08:48PM

sueme wrote: »

I smoked while pregnant, I also had the occasional drink. I have a brilliant gorgeous child, she is perfectly healthy and on a par with social and educational standards for her age.

Out of interest, did you smoke while pregnant because you didn't believe that smoking while pregnant could cause problems for your child, or did you believe it could but were willing to play the odds and see what happens?

echosound · 05-02-2008 09:10PM

Absolutely ridiculous idea. As other posters have said - how do you tell if a woman is pregnant or not? It only really starts to become visable around 4 months or so, and even at that, some women still don't look obviously pregnant.

Also, how do you jump to the conclusion that if a woman is buying drink or cigarettes it is solely for her own consumption? I've often popped in some beer to the shopping trolley if I'm doing the shopping by myself for my husband, would that mean he has to go to the shops again to pick up alcohol if I were pregnant?

What if a woman is hosting a family get together, again, I'd often pick up bottles of wine/spirits etc if I'm having people over, or on the way to someone's house as a gift. So now I need to get someone else to go to the shop to buy a bottle of wine for me to give a friend? Please. Unfathomable. Unworkable.

I cannot get my head round the idiotic things some people go crusading for, while there are far more important issues to be solved before we start checking every woman who looks as if she's between 13-65 yrs old before they can purchase alcohol or cigarettes in a shop.

embee · 05-02-2008 09:13PM

Just to clarify here - there is NO known safe limit of alcohol to consume whilst pregnant. This includes your one glass of wine with a meal at the weekends. It is wisest to abstain from alcohol completely during pregnancy and in the post-natal period if you are breastfeeding. A GP could tell you that a glass of wine or two a week is fine, and maybe it is, but to date there has been no definitive "safe" level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy so it really is best to just not have any.

Pregnant women should be allowed to do what they bloody want and buy what they want, as long as they are making informed choices. Most women who smoke or drink before pregnancy will stop when they become pregnant. Some will carry on, but thats life. Lots of people out there still smoke even though they know its bad for them and others around them. If you know the dangers and do it anyway, then you are playing a lottery which you could lose. Some babies born to women who smoke show no ill effects, some are low birth weight and have respiratory problems. There is a proven link in the risk of SIDS being higher to babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, and also to parents who smoke after the baby is born.

Next thing you know, pregnant women will be banned from buying pate, smoked salmon, blue cheese, unpasteurised dairy prodcuts, ice cream cones...

really, they should just stay locked up for nine months and not be let out :rolleyes:

Hydroquinone · 05-02-2008 11:05PM

There isn't a woman of child bearing age alive in Ireland today who doesn't know that smoking and drinking while you're pregnant are both not exactly reccomended.
Not a one.
Yet some do it. So it's not out of lack of knowledge that pregnant women drink and smoke. The ones who do it do it because they want to do it.

The only possible way to keep pregnant women who want to smoke and drink from smoking and drinking would be if alcohol and tobacco did not exist.
That's about the bottom line.
Any attempt to implement a ban would be got round. There are pregnant women now who use crack and heroin now and they're illegal. So if a thing is legal to buy in a shop, then there's no way anyone who wants it won't get it.
No way at all.
She get her feller to get it for her, get a mate who wasn't pregnant to get it for her, buy it on the black market, steal it.

Anyone who thinks a ban is workable in any way, shape or form isn't living in the real world.

rigormortis · 05-02-2008 11:36PM

Of course they should. Hands up if you want to live in a nanny state.:eek:

stepbar · 06-02-2008 12:15AM

or another prime example of the Moral Police in action again :rolleyes: FFS if someone wants to drink while they are pregnant, let them fire ahead. If something happens they have only themselves to blame.

Terry · 06-02-2008 12:33AM

A friends girlfriend did coke, E, drank and smoked while pregnant (quit the illegal oneswhen she found out she was pregnant). They now have a beautiful and healthy child.

Another friends girlfriend didn't do any drugs while pregnant. The clild was born severly handicapped and died after a week.

Another friend smoked, drank and did coke in the early stages of a pregnancy. She didn't know she was pregnant at the time.
She miscarried.

My own mother lost three children before I was born.
She had the odd glass of guinness and didn't smoke. Illegal drugs didn't even enter the equation back then.

Point is, you just never know what's going to happen.

RonMexico · 06-02-2008 12:36AM

I have to serve so many fat swampdonkeys that I would rather not have to make this decision. They all look pregnant to me.

rigormortis · 06-02-2008 12:36AM

Terry wrote: »

A friends girlfriend did coke, E, drank and smoked while pregnant (quit the illegal oneswhen she found out she was pregnant). They now have a beautiful and healthy child.

Another friends girlfriend didn't do any drugs while pregnant. The clild was born severly handicapped and died after a week.

Another friend smoked, drank and did coke in the early stages of a pregnancy. She didn't know she was pregnant at the time.
She miscarried.

My own mother lost three children before I was born.
She had the odd glass of guinness and didn't smoke. Illegal drugs didn't even enter the equation back then.

Point is, you just never know what's going to happen.

Lifes a lottery. Thats why people should not believe these fear stories in the "newspapers".

djpbarry · 06-02-2008 12:52AM

Terry wrote: »

A friends girlfriend did coke, E, drank and smoked while pregnant (quit the illegal oneswhen she found out she was pregnant). They now have a beautiful and healthy child.

Another friends girlfriend didn't do any drugs while pregnant. The clild was born severly handicapped and died after a week.

Another friend smoked, drank and did coke in the early stages of a pregnancy. She didn't know she was pregnant at the time.
She miscarried.

My own mother lost three children before I was born.
She had the odd glass of guinness and didn't smoke. Illegal drugs didn't even enter the equation back then.

Point is, you just never know what's going to happen.

No, you don't, but it does no harm to improve your chances of a positive outcome.

wil · 06-02-2008 12:56AM

gamer wrote: »

WHY should women be allowed to harm their children?DO most women even know how serious the risk is of drinking during pregnancy.Should pregnant women be allowed to buy cigarettes?

The answer seems very simple really if you are a concerned shopkeeper, a childrens rights activist or a general pain in the aras.

"Sorry I am not allowed to sell alcohol/cigarettes/cocaine to under 18s. It's more than my job's worth. You could be an inspector. Next please.
NO honestly, I cant sell it to you unless you can piss on this preg test and prove you are just fat. Talk to the manager."

Alcohol traverses the blood brain and placenta barrier so you cant serve one without the other. They might come back and sue you later if you served them and hadnt warned them their child could be affected.:rolleyes:

Terry · 06-02-2008 12:59AM

djpbarry wrote: »

No, you don't, but it does no harm to improve your chances of a positive outcome.

I completely agree.
I was just pointing out that you just never know what's going to happen.

rigormortis · 06-02-2008 01:06AM

FREEDOM of choice. What gives you people the right to police others? He without fault cast the first stone.

djpbarry · 06-02-2008 01:09AM

Terry wrote: »

I completely agree.
I was just pointing out that you just never know what's going to happen.

Absolutely, but unfortunately there are some incredibly stupid tabloid-reading people out there who heard, through their best friend's hairdresser's ex-husband's dog's vet's pen-pal, about a woman who did heroine while pregnant and her baby went on to win a Nobel Prize. They then of course think to themselves, "hey, what harm are a few bottles of toilet duck..."

wil · 06-02-2008 01:20AM

Terry wrote: »

<snip> Guinness <snip.>

"So Guinness is Go(o)d for You"?;)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3266819.stm

http://www.talk-ireland.com/print.php?sid=1446

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20060924/ai_n16749007

Terry · 06-02-2008 01:31AM

djpbarry wrote: »

Absolutely, but unfortunately there are some incredibly stupid tabloid-reading people out there who heard, through their best friend's hairdresser's ex-husband's dog's vet's pen-pal, about a woman who did heroine while pregnant and her baby went on to win a Nobel Prize. They then of course think to themselves, "hey, what harm are a few bottles of toilet duck..."

Indeed. ^

Padraig Mor · 06-02-2008 09:49AM

embee wrote: »

Just to clarify here - there is NO known safe limit of alcohol to consume whilst pregnant. This includes your one glass of wine with a meal at the weekends. It is wisest to abstain from alcohol completely during pregnancy :

That's only half the story though. Occasional consumption of alcohol while pregnant has never been linked with birth defects. A drink here and there will do absolutely no harm. Calling for people to give up completely is just hysteria.

The Hill Billy · 06-02-2008 09:53AM

embee wrote: »

Just to clarify here - there is NO known safe limit of alcohol to consume whilst pregnant. This includes your one glass of wine with a meal at the weekends. It is wisest to abstain from alcohol completely during pregnancy and in the post-natal period if you are breastfeeding. A GP could tell you that a glass of wine or two a week is fine, and maybe it is, but to date there has been no definitive "safe" level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy so it really is best to just not have any.

Pregnant women should be allowed to do what they bloody want and buy what they want, as long as they are making informed choices. Most women who smoke or drink before pregnancy will stop when they become pregnant. Some will carry on, but thats life. Lots of people out there still smoke even though they know its bad for them and others around them. If you know the dangers and do it anyway, then you are playing a lottery which you could lose. Some babies born to women who smoke show no ill effects, some are low birth weight and have respiratory problems. There is a proven link in the risk of SIDS being higher to babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, and also to parents who smoke after the baby is born.

Next thing you know, pregnant women will be banned from buying pate, smoked salmon, blue cheese, unpasteurised dairy prodcuts, ice cream cones...

really, they should just stay locked up for nine months and not be let out :rolleyes:

Brilliant post embee!

You really have to wonder how in the name of jebus the human race made it this far without the benefit of having scientists telling us what we should or should not put in our bodies at various stages of our lives & politicians to implement laws to support them.

Really - we'd be fcuked if it weren't for Probiotic yoghurt & the PDs.
.

Sam Vimes · 06-02-2008 10:23AM

i find it interesting that the american government will allow women to go to a doctor to have their babies sucked out with a hoover and thrown away with the medical waste but they won't allow them to have a few pints, lest they harm the baby

djpbarry · 06-02-2008 10:40AM

Commander Vimes wrote: »

i find it interesting that the american government will allow women to go to a doctor to have their babies sucked out with a hoover and thrown away with the medical waste but they won't allow them to have a few pints, lest they harm the baby

I suppose the latter could be morally construed as child-abuse, seeing as the mother has every intention of keeping the baby, yet they are fully aware (or at least I assume they are) that they are potentially causing physical harm.

Sam Vimes · 06-02-2008 11:19AM

djpbarry wrote: »

I suppose the latter could be morally construed as child-abuse, seeing as the mother has every intention of keeping the baby, yet they are fully aware (or at least I assume they are) that they are potentially causing physical harm.

is sucking it out and throwing it away not physical harm?

under what circumstances should it be legal to harm an unborn baby?

after all, its her body. Should she not be allowed do whatever she wants to it, regardless of the baby?

faceman · 06-02-2008 11:29AM

djpbarry wrote: »

I suppose the latter could be morally construed as child-abuse, seeing as the mother has every intention of keeping the baby, yet they are fully aware (or at least I assume they are) that they are potentially causing physical harm.

+1

the right to abort is a completely different issue altogether

eldeabroad · 06-02-2008 11:47AM

much better if they stop selling drink to knacker scumbags dontcha think?

women (not all, but many) go on about the "my body - my choice" thing in relation to abortion etc - why should this be any different? If a person is over the legal age to purchase smokes or alco-mo-hol, then the only refusal should be, for example: an obviously very drunk person in a bar/club IMO.

Sam Vimes · 06-02-2008 11:53AM

faceman wrote: »

+1

the right to abort is a completely different issue altogether

so "my body my choice" should only apply if a woman wants to kill her baby. If she wants to merely cause it significant harm, we should step in and prevent her? Does that stop it being her body?

EamonnKeane · 06-02-2008 12:54PM

farohar wrote: »

Older the man is too also has a significant impact, it's just that women are demonised for it more since society tends to view it as their fault that they're not having kids until their late 30's/early 40's.

I really doubt that; spermatozoa are very simple cells.

djpbarry · 06-02-2008 01:14PM

Commander Vimes wrote: »

so "my body my choice" should only apply if a woman wants to kill her baby. If she wants to merely cause it significant harm, we should step in and prevent her? Does that stop it being her body?

I agree with faceman; abortion is another matter entirely.

EamonnKeane wrote: »

spermatozoa are very simple cells.

Maybe yours are...

Sam Vimes · 06-02-2008 01:33PM

djpbarry wrote: »

I agree with faceman; abortion is another matter entirely.
Maybe yours are...

stating that it's different make it so. And wanting it to be different doesn't make it so either. Why is it different?

why is it that its acceptable to condemn a woman who possibly risks the health of her baby by drinking and not acceptable to condemn a woman who kills her baby?

Why is the baby just a clump of cells that can be done with as she pleases in one case but not the other?

djpbarry · 06-02-2008 01:53PM

Commander Vimes wrote: »

Why is the baby just a clump of cells that can be done with as she pleases in one case but not the other?

Well, I never argued that, but seeing as you've mentioned it, if a woman has an abortion, she has clearly shown that she has no intention of having the child, for whatever reason.

In the case of a pregnant woman who, say, drinks a bottle of wine a day, in the knowledge that she is pregnant, her intention is to have the baby, yet she is knowingly endangering her baby's health, possibly fatally, and in all likelihood, causing far more suffering. In my opinion, such a person is not fit to be a mother. Bear in mind that there comes a point during the pregnancy when the baby has developed into far more than just a “clump of cells”.

The difference is the intent. If you intend to have a child then you should do your utmost to ensure that the child is healthy and certainly not knowingly put the child’s heath at risk.

Kernel32 · 06-02-2008 02:13PM

Commander Vimes wrote: »

i find it interesting that the american government will allow women to go to a doctor to have their babies sucked out with a hoover and thrown away with the medical waste but they won't allow them to have a few pints, lest they harm the baby

I find it interesting people will believe just about anything posted randomly to an online forum.

kernel32 wrote:

I am pretty sure no such law exists, at least at a federal or state level. In fact I am pretty sure most bars would be open for a lawsuit for refusing on those grounds. It's possible that some little backwoods town has some local laws allowing refusal on those grounds now which would allow a bar person to make a choice but those type of things get squashed at the state level pretty quickly. It seems like people will believe anything about America.

Keep in mind this is different to a woman being charged with child abuse due to her child being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. This is very possible and probably a good idea as it shows that she may not be capable to caring for the child.

Should pubs ,shops be allowed to sell drink to pregnant women?

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