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Drinking alcohol when you're pregnant causes lots of controversy. Some women give up completely, while others are happy to have the odd glass or two each week.

To make it worse, official advice seems to change with the arrival of each new piece of research. No wonder pregnant women are confused. Health expert Julia Shaw sifts through the facts

So, can you binge drink when pregnant?

No. Doctors are telling pregnant women not to start drinking because of a study by Oxford University. It said that there was little evidence that occasional binge drinking could harm their unborn babies.

However the study, which didn't find any links between binge drinking and birth defects, stressed that pregnant women shouldn't now start drinking. Dr Ron Gray from the National Perinatal Epidemiology unit says: 'I wouldn't want anybody to believe that, on the basis of this report, that it was safe to binge drink.'

Binge drinking - drinking five or more drinks in one session - is on the rise amongst women in the UK, almost doubling in the last decade.

The Government says that women should avoid binge-drinking completely during pregnancy. The British Medical Association says that pregnant women should avoid alcohol altogether as a precaution.

What does alcohol do to unborn babies?

Evidence shows that excessive drinking during pregnancy can cause 'foetal alcohol syndrome' with problems from low birth weight and flattened features to learning difficulties, hyperactivity, heart and kidney abnormalities, deafness and brain damage.

Growing evidence is also showing that excessive drinking could cause miscarriage or stillbirth. If you drink during pregnancy you're sharing that cocktail with your baby.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says that you pass on the same amount of alcohol that you drink straight to your baby so it can greatly affect your baby's development.

- Next: so what can you drink when you're pregnant?

- Pregnancy myths busted
- Pregnancy and alcohol
- Planning to become pregnant

By Julia Shaw

• Next: Should you drink when pregnant? Part 2

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