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I'm not a mother, nor will I ever be, in all likelihood, but punitive American pregnancy guidelines leave me enraged nonetheless. I wouldn't ever encourage a woman who has a problem controlling her alcohol intake to keep drinking while pregnant, but there are tons of women out there for whom drinking is simply an occasional pleasure. The medical evidence does not back up prohibiting such women from drinking. When my sister (who has a healthy attitude toward drinking) was somewhat ambivalently pregnant with her third, I encouraged her to go ahead and have the margarita she was craving. She did, and kept raving to me afterwards about how good it tasted. She grew into her pregnancy, fell in love with what wound up being a 9 pound, extremely healthy little boy. I think excessive prohibitions on pregnant women only makes them separate and even become resentful of their babies.
