The Mental Health Commission has developed a new Alcohol.Think Again public education campaign about women drinking while pregnant.
The campaign’s key message of ‘any amount a mother drinks, the baby drinks’, challenges the inaccurate belief that a mother’s placenta protects a developing baby from alcohol.
Minister for Health, Roger Cook said if a woman drinks alcohol during pregnancy, the blood alcohol level of the baby is similar to that of the mother, with research showing that even small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy can be harmful.
“In December, the National Health and Medical Research Council strengthened the advice relating to pregnancy in the Australian Guidelines to Reduce Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol,” Mr Cook said.
“The Council now recommends that women who are pregnant and planning pregnancy should not drink alcohol.”
He said that while Mental Health Commission research found most women believed alcohol should not be consumed during pregnancy, 15 per cent reported drinking alcohol in their last pregnancy.
“Prenatal exposure to alcohol can damage the baby’s brain, resulting in severe and permanent physical, mental and behavioural disabilities, known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD),” Mr Cook said.
“There is concern that as many as two per cent of all Australian babies may be born with some form of FASD.”
He said the new campaign was part of a broader Preventing FASD Project, announced in March last year with the release of the Commitment to Aboriginal Youth Wellbeing.
