Pregnant women are drinking more, according to a newly published report from the CDC.
The data sheds new light on one more aspect of public health in the U.S. that appears to be trending in the wrong direction, leaving serious developmental problems in its wake. Since 2020, more people say they are drinking while pregnant – a shift that coincided with a rise in pandemic drinking broadly, but one that appears to be lingering.
The study, first reported by STAT, showed that 15.2% of pregnant women in the U.S. reported drinking in surveys conducted from 2021 to 2024. That number ticked up from the 13.5% of pregnant women who reported drinking in data collected from 2018 to 2020.
The more recent set of surveys also found that 4.9% of pregnant women said they had engaged in binge drinking and 2.2% engaged in heavy drinking within a 30 day period. Binge drinking was defined as consuming four or more alcoholic drinks at once, while heavy drinking meant survey participants were drinking eight or more alcoholic drinks within a week’s time. Among the pregnant women who reported drinking, a third also reported binge drinking, while almost 15% said they engaged in heavy drinking.
The report found that unmarried pregnant women and those with “frequent mental distress” were the most likely to report drinking alcohol, in spite of its well-established risks during pregnancy. “Studies suggest alcohol consumption might be used as a coping method to relieve stress and manage negative feelings, although alcohol consumption might alter or exacerbate stress pathways,” the report states, suggesting that behavioral health screening and other kinds of support are an important facet of prenatal care.
The study drew on a large body of government health data collected from telephone surveying, but it did have a few limitations. It’s possible that some of the pregnant women who said they had consumed alcohol in the prior 30 days did so before finding out that they were pregnant. The report didn’t distinguish between women pregnant for eight months and women who had only known they were pregnant for a few weeks.
An evolving understanding about serious risk
Drinking during pregnancy isn’t socially acceptable these days, but that hasn’t always been the case. Attitudes toward drinking during pregnancy shifted in the U.S. starting in the 1970s, when the FDA and CDC sent out the first warning recommending that pregnant women limit their alcohol intake to two drinks per day.
Now, the official medical recommendation is that no amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. While some studies have suggested that amounts of alcohol during the first trimester pose less of a risk of blood pressure complications, premature birth, and low birth weight, pregnant women are still encouraged to avoid drinking altogether to avoid serious problems from prenatal alcohol exposure. That includes the risk of an infant developing a wide range of birth defects, conditions, disabilities that fall under the category of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders and are estimated to impact between one and five percent of first graders in the U.S.
In the report, the CDC cites alcohol consumption during pregnancy as an ongoing public health concern and suggests that increased health screening, warning labels, and additional taxes could reduce prenatal exposure. “Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can increase the risk for adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes,” the report states. “No amount of alcohol consumption during pregnancy is known to be safe.”