Alcohol: Its History With Pregnant Women

“Pregnant women were once permitted, even encouraged, to drink alcohol by their doctors.  In the nineteenth century, physicians prescribed champagne as a treatment for morning sickness, and brandy with soda as an appetite stimulant.  Well into the twentieth century, alcohol was viewed as an all-purpose remedy that soothed pregnant women’s nerves and fortified them for the rigors of labor.  It was believed that alcohol would relax the uterus following amniocentesis, and even arrest labor that had begun prematurely.”

– How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives (2010) by Annie Murphy Paul; page 77

One obstetrics textbook published in 1953 read, “Alcohol, as such, is not injurious and need not be eliminated during pregnancy…  An occasional cocktail, highball, beer or ale, need not be restricted and may be most beneficial.”

“No, smoking and alcoholic drinks have no effect on an unborn baby,” chided a news bulletin distributed by a medical society in 1954.  Calling such ideas “superstitions” and “old wives tales,” it concluded with a wag of the finger, “Listen to your doctor instead of sewing circle fantasy.”

– How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives (2010) by Annie Murphy Paul;

pages 77 – 78