The WHO wants to prevent all women of "child-bearing age" from drinking alcohol

18-06-2021 12:32pm #1

No way this will stick. It feels like it's about controlling women.

https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf?sfvrsn=b690edb0_1&download=true

Below is a summary for those who don't wish to read the document:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40316093.html

NIMAN · 18-06-2021 12:32pm

They don't "want", they are advising.

Smee_Again · 18-06-2021 12:33pm

Any chance you could quote where that is said? That document is 37 pages long.

18-06-2021 12:33pm

There's no "controlling women" it's just highly advisable.

pappyodaniel · 18-06-2021 12:34pm

I never listen to anything Roger Daltrey has to say.

ghostfacekilla · 18-06-2021 12:35pm

Nobody will ever get laid again.

Hellrazer · 18-06-2021 12:38pm

Jesus lets hope Tony Holohan doesnt see this document - hes completely anti-alcohol as it is.

Pregnancy test before you order your outdoor pints??

But it will have to be a blood test as those urine tests cant be trusted and can be faked.

SEPT 23 1989 · 18-06-2021 12:40pm

birthing units should not be drinking

Porklife · 18-06-2021 12:40pm

Lurleen wrote: »

There's no "controlling women" it's just highly advisable.

It absolutely is about controlling women. As a recently pregnant woman I can strongly say I've never felt under more scrutiny or judgement from ordering a coffee in starbucks and being asked should I have decaf instead, to getting funny looks in the park drinking a non alcoholic beer on a sunny day. It's my body, my baby and my choice.
There are millions of women of child bearing age conceiving and delivering perfectly healthy babies who drink alcohol. Why shouldn't a 25 year old girl enjoy a glass of wine? It's absolutely ridiculous.
Drinking sensibly is highly advisable and should be advocated but that applies to everyone and not just women of a certain age.

Bubbaclaus · 18-06-2021 12:42pm

Very dramatic and fake thread title there.

frag420 · 18-06-2021 12:44pm

Porklife wrote: »

It absolutely is about controlling women. As a recently pregnant woman I can strongly say I've never felt under more scrutiny or judgement from ordering a coffee in starbucks and being asked should I have decaf instead, to getting funny looks in the park drinking a non alcoholic beer on a sunny day. It's my body, my baby and my choice.
There are millions of women of child bearing age conceiving and delivering perfectly healthy babies who drink alcohol. Why shouldn't a 25 year old girl enjoy a glass of wine? It's absolutely ridiculous.
Drinking sensibly is highly advisable and should be advocated but that applies to everyone and not just women of a certain age.

Was probably your hormones, be grand after you have some wine!

18-06-2021 12:44pm

A total non-story.

"Alcohol is bad for you."

Porklife · 18-06-2021 12:45pm

frag420 wrote: »

Was probably your hormones, be grand after you have some wine!

My thoughts exactly:p

Spanish Eyes · 18-06-2021 12:55pm

Ideal time for biological women of child bearing age to self ID as transmen. Free to do whatever they want then. As men can. But wait.... women only have a window of about 30 + years within which they can conceive. Men on the other hand can impregnate until they are boxed (as my granny used to say). Can't be having men without a pint all their lives now can we?

Mrs OBumble · 18-06-2021 12:57pm

Porklife wrote: »

It's my body, my baby and my choice.
.... Why shouldn't a 25 year old girl enjoy a glass of wine? It's absolutely ridiculous.
Drinking sensibly is highly advisable and should be advocated but that applies to everyone and not just women of a certain age.

Drinking sensibly is less harmful than drinking insensiblly. But it's not as good as not drinking.

There is no safe level of alcohol in pregnancy.

And it is society's issue, because society picks up up enormous costs when a kid is born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Even low birthweight pushes up the health system costs. And the kid feels the effects for its entire life.

So your body, your choices, but big effects for others.

BrianD3 · 18-06-2021 1:15pm

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Very dramatic and fake thread title there.

Not fake, below is a quote from page 17 of the WHO document

WHO wrote:

Appropriate attention should be given to
prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age, and protection of people from pressures to drink

honeyjo · 18-06-2021 1:33pm

Welcome to Gilead. Blessed be the fruit

18-06-2021 1:35pm

Women have it the worst. Imagine being told information that may assist you with fertility? Bastards.

Hadron Collider · 18-06-2021 1:45pm

Porklife wrote: »

There are millions of women of child bearing age conceiving and delivering perfectly healthy babies who drink alcohol.

There are also millions of women whose drinking during pregnancy led to miscarriage, stillbirth, or a range of lifelong physical, behavioral, and intellectual disabilities inflicted on their children.

Why shouldn't a 25 year old girl enjoy a glass of wine?

Why can't a 25-year-old pregnant woman act responsibly and lay off the bottle for 9 months for the sake of her child?

Tommybojangles · 18-06-2021 1:46pm

Health organisation:
"Alcohol is maybe not great"

Crazies:
"You'll never take my FREEEEEEDDDOOOMM"

gctest50 · 18-06-2021 1:54pm

Hadron Collider wrote: »

.........

Why can't a 25-year-old pregnant woman act responsibly and lay off the bottle for 9 months for the sake of her child?

A couple of drinks per week might help your child not to turn out a slow pain in the ass :

Boys born to mothers who had up to 1–2 drinks per week or per occasion were less likely to have conduct problems (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.45–0.77) and hyperactivity (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.54–0.94). These effects remained in fully adjusted models. Girls were less likely to have emotional symptoms (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.51–1.01) and peer problems (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.52–0.92) compared with those born to abstainers. These effects were attenuated in fully adjusted models. Boys born to light drinkers had higher cognitive ability test scores [standard deviations, (95% CI)] BAS 0.15 (0.08–0.23) BSRA 0.24 (0.16–0.32) compared with boys born to abstainers

but tell some people "a few" and they take it as a few shelves /crates leading to

Hadron Collider wrote: »

There are also millions of women whose drinking during pregnancy led to miscarriage, stillbirth, or a range of lifelong physical, behavioral, and intellectual disabilities inflicted on their children

Bubbaclaus · 18-06-2021 2:01pm

BrianD3 wrote: »

Not fake, below is a quote from page 17 of the WHO document

You literally quote something that agrees with my post mate. The post thread title is classic fake news.

Tommybojangles wrote: »

Health organisation:
"Alcohol is maybe not great"

Crazies:
"You'll never take my FREEEEEEDDDOOOMM"

You'd worry about our education system and the amount of crazies coming out of it.

Zaph · 18-06-2021 2:12pm

Hadron Collider wrote: »

Why can't a 25-year-old pregnant woman act responsibly and lay off the bottle for 9 months for the sake of her child?

Many do, but that's not what's at issue here. As quoted above:

WHO wrote:

Appropriate attention should be given to
prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age, and protection of people from pressures to drink

So what they're suggesting is that whether a woman is pregnant or not she should lay off the sauce until she can no longer have kids. That seems unnecessarily draconian.

Duckworth_Luas · 18-06-2021 2:16pm

What would Keith Moon have thought of this latest nonsense from The Who?

WrenBoy · 18-06-2021 2:16pm

Trust the science ladies :pac:

nullzero · 18-06-2021 2:22pm

I wouldn't have thought anyone involved in putting that message out believes for a second that women will not drink as a result of it. More so it's simply a reminder of how alcohol can be damaging, and in a perfect world you wouldn't poison your body with it.

I remember seeing women smoking outside Holles Street when my missus was having our kids. Pregnant women in dressing gowns smoking on the street outside the hospital about to give birth, or having just done so. Most women wouldn't dream of doing that sort of thing but the WHO has to target the demographic that does and try to make them understand the damage substances like alcohol and tobacco have.

18-06-2021 2:27pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

There is no safe level of alcohol in pregnancy.

I believe that sentence is a direct quote from WHO from some years back right?

Unfortunately it is an oft misconstrued sentence. It is often read as meaning that any alcohol during pregnancy is unsafe or harmful. But that is not what the phrase means at all.

What the phrase means is that there is no level that has been studied and declared safe. You could say the same thing about eating peanuts.

Basically the phrase means that while there is no reason at all to think that low levels of drinking during pregnancy is at all likely to be harmful - the fact there are "individual sensitivities" - as WHO puts it - means they are neither in a position to declare any level at all "safe" either.

To use an analogy - it would be like me walking up to you in the Departures Terminal and declaring that no amount of airtravel can be declared "safe" because there is always a chance - however small - it is going to kill you. No amount of being stung by wasps is declared "safe" either. There is no "safe level" of wasp stings.

You should still feel just fine getting on the plane. Just like a pregnant women sitting in a restaurant should feel fine having a glass of wine.

A lot of people look into it but usually in the end they just play it safe and admit that while they can not find any issues with drinking moderately - you might as well just not do it anyway. For example there was a study in 2012 which tested this in over 1600 women and concluded no "significant effects of low to moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy on executive functioning at the age of 5 years. Furthermore, only weak and no consistent associations between maternal binge drinking and executive functions were observed."

While a Time Magazine article noted:

"This wasn’t just an absence of any evidence at all. There are many studies—largely from Europe—which compare women who do not drink at all to those who drink lightly in pregnancy. Some of these are better than others—some of the best are a series of studies from Denmark—but their results consistently fail to show negative impacts of pregnancy drinking at low levels."

So yea I think looking at all the advice and all the studies the safe thing is to say you should avoid heavy or binge drinking at the best of times but especially during pregnancy and double especially during early pregnancy. But suggesting women should not drink _at all_ during pregnancy - and especially simply just during child bearing age - is either complete fantasy or is based on some new research results I have not gotten around to reading yet.

One eyed Jack · 18-06-2021 2:28pm

Zaph wrote: »

So what they're suggesting is that whether a woman is pregnant or not she should lay off the sauce until she can no longer have kids. That seems unnecessarily draconian.

Well yes, it does... until it's read in it's proper context -

Action area 2: Advocacy, awareness and commitment

Strategic and well-developed international communication and advocacy are needed to raise awareness about alcohol-related harm and the effectiveness of policy measures among decisionmakers and the general public in order to increase their support for faster implementation of the Global strategy. Special efforts and activities are needed to mobilize different stakeholders for coordinated actions to protect public health and foster broad political commitment to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.

It is necessary to raise awareness among decision-makers and the general public about the risks and harms associated with alcohol consumption. Appropriate attention should be given to prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age, and protection of people from pressures to drink, especially in societies with high levels of alcohol consumption where heavy drinkers are encouraged to drink even more. An international day or week of awareness on the harmful use of alcohol or a “World no alcohol day/week” could help to focus and reinforce public attention on the problem. Public health advocacy is more likely to succeed if it is well supported by evidence and based on emerging opportunities, and if the arguments are free from moralizing. The international discourse on alcohol policy development and implementation should address health inequalities associated with the harmful use of alcohol and its broad socioeconomic impact, including its impact on attainment of the health and other targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The impact of harmful use of alcohol on health and well-being should not be limited to the impact on NCDs, but should be expanded to include other areas of health and development such as mental health, injuries, violence, infectious diseases, productivity at workplaces, family functioning and a “harm to others” perspective. Modern communication technologies and multimedia materials are needed for successful advocacy and behavioural change campaigns, including social media engagement.

Such awareness, along with the development and enforcement of alcohol policies, needs to be protected from interference by commercial interests. Appropriate mechanisms that involve academia and civil society must be set up to systematically monitor such interference.

Deleted User wrote: »

Women have it the worst. Imagine being told information that may assist you with fertility? Bastards.

It's a fair point. The document doesn't make any mention of the impact of alcohol upon male fertility. Contrary to the OP's assertion though that this seems like an attempt to control women, it's made clear in the introduction of the document that -

The information in this document does not necessarily represent the stated views or policies of the World Health Organization. The responsibility for the interpretation and use of the material lies with the reader.

We can all relax now

appledrop · 18-06-2021 2:56pm

One of the absolutely most disgraceful recommendations every published.

So basicially all women shouldn't drink alcohol for 32 years between the age of 18-50 in case they get pregnant?

Are they actually for real?

Yes we know alcohol not recommended when pregnant, that's grand but we can't for 32 years worry about whether or not we will get pregnant this month!

mohawk · 18-06-2021 2:59pm

Hadron Collider wrote: »

There are also millions of women whose drinking during pregnancy led to miscarriage, stillbirth, or a range of lifelong physical, behavioral, and intellectual disabilities inflicted on their children.

Why can't a 25-year-old pregnant woman act responsibly and lay off the bottle for 9 months for the sake of her child?

Poster didn’t say anything about a 25 year old pregnant woman drinking. They said a 25 year old women. The WHO reports says pregnant women and women of childbearing age.
So the question remains why shouldn’t a 25 year old woman drink alcohol when she is not pregnant?

I am currently pregnant and hadn’t drank in couple months before conceiving. I knew we were trying for a baby and that I wouldn’t know straight away if I was pregnant or not so didn’t bother drinking. The report specifically mentioned prevention. If it said education about alcohol risks then that is fair enough.

appledrop · 18-06-2021 3:00pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Drinking sensibly is less harmful than drinking insensiblly. But it's not as good as not drinking.

There is no safe level of alcohol in pregnancy.

And it is society's issue, because society picks up up enormous costs when a kid is born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Even low birthweight pushes up the health system costs. And the kid feels the effects for its entire life.

So your body, your choices, but big effects for others.

Eh I think your missing the point. We all know drinking in pregnancy itself is harmful, but WHO are saying all women of childbearing age shouldn't be drinking even if your not pregnant!!!!!!!

seamus · 18-06-2021 3:07pm

While I appreciate that as health professionals they have a duty to make recommendations that aim for optimal health you have to question the wisdom of making statements which are just going to be treated with derision. Like suggestions last November that we could "delay Xmas and hold it in June or something", immediately when someone has said it, their reliability as an advisor is damaged. Because the absurdity of the statement should be so obvious that they just wouldn't say it at all.

So when the WHO says that women of childbearing age (i.e. every woman between 14 and 50) should avoid drinking, it damages their credibility as health advisors. Not because it's bad health advice, but because it's absurd to think that by saying, it will be at all effective. Instead it makes the WHO look like they're in a fantasy world, a bunch of anti-alcohol cranks.

Confused11811 · 18-06-2021 3:11pm

That's the designated driver issue sorted in my household.

appledrop · 18-06-2021 3:15pm

Confused11811 wrote: »

That's the designated driver issue sorted in my household.

Yep and depending on your age could be for next 20 years!

jim o doom · 18-06-2021 3:20pm

Plenty of women of "child bearing age" never intend to, and in fact succeed in never having children.

Those women face other people (who do want kids), or older folks patronisingly going "you'll change your mind", or "one day you'll want one".. when the truth could not be further.

Now we have the WHO suggesting that any woman of child bearing age (regardless of their plans regarding children) should be "prevented" from drinking alcohol.

My wife and I are never having kids, we don't want them. Everyone knows the negatives of alcohol, it's not new news, we've all known it for a long time.

The WHO advice can get f*cked. Women can drink what they want, when they want and so can men.

zom · 18-06-2021 3:21pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

So your body, your choices, but big effects for others.

Either drinking and smoking is absolutely legal during pregnancy and all together with a right to abortion it allows women to do whatever they want to their unborn child. Up until born it has no rights (up until mother comes to hospital for labor to be precise).

El_Duderino 09 · 18-06-2021 3:36pm

Yeah it's completely over the top reaction to normal, sensible advice which people are completely free to ignore.
Page 17, Para 2 of the report
"Appropriate attention should be given to prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age, and protection of people from pressures to drink, especially in societies with high levels of alcohol consumption where heavy drinkers are encouraged to drink even more".

We try to "prevent" people from doing all sorts of things like getting fat or being unfit, by giving them the information to make informed decisions. But it remains legal to be overweight and unfit. The more information people have the more they can make informed decisions and the better off they are.

If drinking negatively affects getting pregnant then people should have that information. They can make decisions based on that information. Simple stuff. No need for outrage.

One eyed Jack · 18-06-2021 3:40pm

seamus wrote: »

So when the WHO says that women of childbearing age (i.e. every woman between 14 and 50) should avoid drinking, it damages their credibility as health advisors. Not because it's bad health advice, but because it's absurd to think that by saying, it will be at all effective. Instead it makes the WHO look like they're in a fantasy world, a bunch of anti-alcohol cranks.

But that’s why they include a whole boatload of proposals aimed at tackling the issue of abuse of alcohol in societies where alcohol abuse is a social issue. They’re not an organisation solely concerned with the health and well-being of individuals, but rather the health and well-being of societies as a whole. They may still be perceived as a bunch of anti-alcohol cranks though by people who value their individual freedom over the common good of society.

jim o doom wrote: »

The WHO advice can get f*cked. Women can drink what they want, when they want and so can men.

Notwithstanding the fact that the WHO doesn’t have the luxury of your individual perspective, they aren’t telling anyone they can’t drink alcohol whenever they want. What they are doing is what they’ve always done as an organisation which is to issue advice on health policies as it pertains to societies as a whole, the clue is in the name of the organisation. To that effect, they are advising policy and decision-makers about campaigning successfully to reduce the influence of alcohol in society. There was a particular focus on women, granted, but they didn’t solely focus on women, and they appear to have ignored the impact of fathers alcohol consumption on their children -

Can a Father's Alcohol Consumption Affect His Baby?

It would appear they’re going with the idea that rather than trying to define any “safe level” of alcohol consumption, they’re going for the idea of discouraging alcohol consumption altogether. There are certainly arguments can be made for the benefits of alcohol consumption, but they must be weighed against the negatives of alcohol consumption, and it would be difficult to argue that the benefits of alcohol consumption in society actually do outweigh the negative consequences of alcohol consumption in society.

I’ll stick with my individual freedoms though all the same

Greyfox · 18-06-2021 3:55pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah it's completely over the top reaction to normal, sensible advice which people are completely free to ignore.

Their is nothing sensible about saying a non pregnant women shouldnt drink alcohol. The WHO have a responsibility to give good advice so they should be called out if they give braindead and insulting advice that's divorced from reality.

jim o doom · 18-06-2021 3:58pm

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Notwithstanding the fact that the WHO doesn’t have the luxury of your individual perspective, they aren’t telling anyone they can’t drink alcohol whenever they want. What they are doing is what they’ve always done as an organisation which is to issue advice on health policies as it pertains to societies as a whole, the clue is in the name of the organisation.

The thing is, my perspective is not all that unique. There are many women who either cant have or who simply dont want to have children and who never do. honestly, more power to them, there are far too many humans destroying the planet.

Their advice is that any woman of childbearing age abstain from alcohol, regardless of her ability or wishes regarding future kids.

It's completely patronising, lacking in any degree of nuance, and like I said before, it can go get f#cked. So can anyone in the organisation who thought publishing this sort of massive generalisation was a good idea.

Now I dont actually believe this, but I do briefly muse on the admittedly conspiracy theory sounding thought.. I wonder is there a drive in China against alcohol or women of child bearing drinking alcohol.

El_Duderino 09 · 18-06-2021 3:59pm

Greyfox wrote: »

Their is nothing sensible about saying a non pregnant women shouldnt drink alcohol. The WHO have a responsibility to give good advice so they should be called out if they give braindead and insulting advice that's divorced from reality.

Depends how they plan to go about it. If they planned do it through an outright ban, then your outrage would be justified. If they plan to do it through simply saying, "drinking can damage your fertility", then grand.

Since its almost certainly the latter, then there's absolutely nothing to get worked up about. Wouldn't you agree?

LeakyLime · 18-06-2021 4:08pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Depends how they plan to go about it. If they planned do it through an outright ban, then your outrage would be justified. If they plan to do it through simply saying, "drinking can damage your fertility", then grand.

Since its almost certainly the latter, then there's absolutely nothing to get worked up about. Wouldn't you agree?

No it's nothing to do with the fertility. The advice relates to women of child bearing age because the may become pregnant and it may harm your unborn child.

Alcohol also affects sperm count and male fertility, but fertility is not the issue here.

jim o doom · 18-06-2021 4:08pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

If they plan to do it through simply saying, "drinking can damage your fertility"

If that is the intended message, then it should be the published message.. but it isnt.

El_Duderino 09 · 18-06-2021 4:09pm

LeakyLime wrote: »

No it's nothing to do with the fertility. The advice relates to women of child bearing age because the may become pregnant and it may harm your unborn child.

Alcohol also affects sperm count and male fertility, but fertility is not the issue here.

Still depends on how they plan to do it. Ban = bad, information = good.

But where does it say "the advice relates to women of child bearing age because the may become pregnant and it may harm your unborn child"?

LeakyLime · 18-06-2021 4:09pm

Basically all females from 12 - 50 should abstain from drinking in case they become pregnant.

Bring on the menopause!

El_Duderino 09 · 18-06-2021 4:10pm

jim o doom wrote: »

If that is the intended message, then it should be the published message.. but it isnt.

They didn't publish the intended message. What do you thin the intended message is?

El_Duderino 09 · 18-06-2021 4:11pm

LeakyLime wrote: »

Basically all females from 12 - 50 should abstain from drinking in case they become pregnant.

Bring on the menopause!

Where does it say they shouldn't drink in case they become pregnant?

Cordell · 18-06-2021 4:12pm

For quite a lot of women alcohol is the only way they'll get to bear any child. But I can see the WHO point here, they should abstain and leave it all for the man.

In any case, WHO credibility is stooping to UN levels, and that's not an easy thing to do in a year's time.

Greyfox · 18-06-2021 4:17pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Since its almost certainly the latter, then there's absolutely nothing to get worked up about. Wouldn't you agree?

I dont agree. Theirs a huge difference between shouldn't drink and saying drinking can effect fertility

jim o doom · 18-06-2021 4:21pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

They didn't publish the intended message. What do you thin the intended message is?

I think the intended message is that women should do as they're told and not drink if they are of child bearing age.

Porklife · 18-06-2021 4:38pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Drinking sensibly is less harmful than drinking insensiblly. But it's not as good as not drinking.

There is no safe level of alcohol in pregnancy.

And it is society's issue, because society picks up up enormous costs when a kid is born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Even low birthweight pushes up the health system costs. And the kid feels the effects for its entire life.

So your body, your choices, but big effects for others.

But I'm not talking about pregnant women, im talking about women of child bearing age who are not pregnant.
Obviously i don't advocate pregnant women drinking regardless of age.
So your point is moot and irrelevant.

The WHO wants to prevent all women of "child-bearing age" from drinking alcohol

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