This is not strictly on topic, but a reminder that everything occurs in a
context.

When I was in Paris last month, all the sidewalk tables at cafes had a
message about alchol in very large print on the surface of the table.  It
said something along the lines of alcohol not being infinitely safe, and
advised customers to stay within the recommended limits for daily
consumption, those being (hang on to your seats here) 3 units a day for men
and 2 units a day for women.  The text was accompanied by photos of units, a
glass of wine or a pint of beer or a drink.  Pregnancy was not mentioned.

My French friend here informs me that the winemakers are up in arms because
wine consumption is down so much, and when he was young he recalled a
campaign to get people to stay under 2 litres per day.  That was later
amended to one litre, and now it seems that my husband and I together could
just split a 750 ml bottle of wine between us, conveniently making our
respective limits.

But nothing tops the story I heard from a relative who spent a summer in
France in the mid-1950's.  There was a campaign on then, entreating parents
to refrain from putting wine in the feeding bottles of their infants as long
as they were under six months of age.

I have heard that there is little talk of avoiding alcohol in pregnancy in
Australia, but don't know whether this is true.  The wine industry is
significant in the Australian economy.

As far as anyone knows, alcohol is not an essential nutrient in the diets of
children.  The problem we are having in Scandinavia with the absolute
puritanical approach, the zero tolerance policy during pregnancy and
breastfeeding, is that women then feel they need to wean if they are
starting to hanker after a glass of wine with a good meal, even if their
babies are a year or more.  So we try to distinguish between the fully
breastfed newborn, the premature baby, and the older baby or child, and
teach moderation and a rational approach.

Personally I'd like to see more attention given to the effects of maternal
alcohol use on the child's social environment, and less attention on what I
view as perceived contamination of the milk.  Even if the amounts of alcohol
are small, we must assume that a child growing up with a mother who drinks
daily will have a different childhood from one whose mother drinks alcohol
very occasionally.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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