From today's Guardian:
The scientific evidence is rarely as clear-cut as it is made out to be. For example, women are now warned that they should not drink any alcohol at all while pregnant (or even if they think they could become pregnant). However, low levels of alcohol consumption during pregnancy have not been shown to cause harm.
But pregnant women are not advised that several nights down the pub during the week is not a good idea. They are told to avoid alcohol altogether for the duration of their pregnancy. This recent shift in official guidance came about, not as a result of changes in the evidence base, but of a perceived need “for clarity and simplicity in providing helpful advice for women and the uncertainties that exist about any completely safe level”.
These new rules involve bowing to expert advice regardless of your own feelings, knowledge or circumstances
So in the face of uncertainty, pregnant women are told, “just say no”. Their own ability to calibrate risk and uncertainty – which, let’s face it, is an unavoidable aspect of pregnancy – is diminished, because of an assumption that the most important thing is that women play by the new rules of parenthood. These new rules, invariably, involve bowing to expert advice regardless of your own feelings, knowledge or circumstances.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... c-evidence