Light drinking in pregnancy not so damaging?

Pregnant women are often advised to stop drinking but a new study by a team of researchers, led by Yvonne J. Kelly from University College London suggests that the odd drink while pregnant has no long-term effects on babies' development. The team studied 11,513 children and their mothers - the children were born between September 2000 and January 2002. 6% of the mothers never drank at all, 60% drank but gave up while they were pregnant, 26% said that they were light drinkers (1 or 2 units a week), 5.5% were moderate drinkers (3-6 units a week) while 2.5% were heavy drinkers (more than 7 units a week). Children whose mothers were heavy drinkers were more likely to be hyperactive and have behavioural or emotional problems but there was no evidence to suggest any problems in children whose mothers had been light drinkers and they were actually 30% less likely to have behavioural problems.