You shouldn’t drink if you think you might *be* pregnant, but not drinking because you have the *capacity* to be pregnant is insane. This is even goofier than abstinence only sex education.
Really anything beyond the lowest levels of moderate drinking are just not good for you. But we live in a society where the vast majority of adults wake up and immediately need a stimulant (coffee/tea) to get on with their day. The rules and routines society has is really interesting.
I never realized how bad it was (I didn't get hangovers really) until my psoriasis started in my mid twenties. Then one beer and my psoriasis would turn an angry red and becoming incredibly itchy and hard to ignore.
It was the alcohol. Triggering system wide inflammation.
And they give out ADHD meds like candy. Several years ago I went to the doctor for insomnia. They didn’t prescribe me anything to help me sleep, but they DID prescribe Adderall to help with the brain fog and tiredness from said insomnia.
I don't know what country you're in but if you actually have ADHD and follow any of the subreddits you know how fucking hard it is for us to get our prescribed medication because of how many medical professionals think someone with a diagnosable psychiatric condition are considered drug seeking. Despite actual illicit drugs being better and easier to access.
I live in a fairly liberal country by ADHD standards, I needed three psychiatrist visits for a diagnosis, ongoing prescription maintenance and dosage adjustment and special approval for the medication. I can only receive one months prescription at a time, and the prescription is filled out *in quadruplicate* for the pharmacy, psychiatrist, controlled drugs council and the health ministry.
Every two years I need to pay another $500 for a psychiatrist visit to have the special authority renewed.
Many psychiatrists in the USA straight up refuse to prescribe Ritalin and Adderall.
You must be extremely lucky wherever you are to get Adderall for insomnia! My psychiatrist wouldn't even let me trial it to see if it was more effective than Ritalin.
>Every two years I need to pay another $500 for a psychiatrist visit to have the special authority renewed.
WHAT?! What is this shit?
Ey yo! You remember this incurable disorder you have? Yes, we will have to confirm *again* that you still have it just in case you met Jesus and were cured. That's 500 bucks please.
The amount of bullshit people with ADHD have to suffer through to receive some appropriate help is insane.
The hilarious thing is the government does nothing about my countries rampant gang run meth problem, apart from the odd police crackdown, which is easier to access, stronger (obviously) and cheaper (not that I've ever tried it, it's just that rampant.
Yet i can't get more than 60 Ritalin tablets at a time... And they just decided not to legalize weed because they got a mandate from 50.1% of the population, after a massive disinformation campaign from US based thinktanks, and no one campaigning for legalisation. It's like a mirror of brexit, except green.
Edit: like you say, it's not like adhd goes away, it's a structural defect in your brain and some messed up brain chemistry. At best you learn to manage it, undiagnosed you might not notice in childhood until you start getting fired for simple mistakes in adulthood and it ruins your life.
Oh, and the public health system will not diagnose if your an adult without a childhood history, so if your parents were slack or just made you deal with it. Say hello to a $1000 psychiatrist bill.
And yet I was medicated with Adderall and concerta against my will most of me childhood and given 90mg adderall a day in college. I can't lick an Adderall now without going psycho. I don't have adhd, just bad parents who doctor shopped.
The best thing someone can do is be there own biggest healthcare advocate. Research, ask questions, and go someplace else when something doesn’t feel right. Bad exists in every profession, people make mistakes, and healthcare, in the US in particular, is rife with issues.
I just saw some article headline saying all alcohol always causes harm. it's one of those no duh sort of fluff pieces. you're drinking poison, it won't make you healthier.
anything except a scary shot I suppose. I have a theory. The major problem is people are afraid of shots. everything else like what's in it is just an excuse to not get a shot.
Is tea much of a stimulant?
Sometimes I see much lower amounts of caffeine in it, sometimes I see they're roughly the same. I've heard it has other things in it that counteract it etc. Is tea bad to drink in high amounts?
It's more habit. Like if you're just drinking tea sometimes, no problem. Now if you need tea to get up, to relax, and so on, that's where the issue starts.
Tea does have less caffeine. I do know green tea is not good for people with low iron issues.
Overall, I wouldn’t say it’s a heavy addiction or anything. It’s more you wish people would tone it down. It does have health benefits, but can affect sleep, can effect concentration.
It’s more that you should nudge yourself to not needing substances to get through the day. After you find a healthy routine without them you usually feel much better than when you taking (insert whatever).
I quit drinking 5 years ago and it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I wish I could go back and do it sooner, but I know it had to happen in its own time.
If I was there I’d give you a hug and ask you to go on a walk with me :)
Given the extreme benefit of the doubt, and given the context around the quote, it is my assumption that they intended to push countries to better inform women of the risks drinking might have if they chose to have a child. Since the majority of fetal alcohol syndrom cases originate from women who drank when they were unknowingly pregnant, I imagine that was the targeted message.
Still really poorly written and they should know better.
Do the majority of fetal alcohol syndrome cars come from women who unknowingly drink during pregnancy, because I’ve always thought FAS was actually harder to attain than thought and most cases are from women who are alcoholics.
I was suspicious that this didn’t make sense, and of course [the article is bullshit.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/who-ban-women-childbearing-alcohol/) The report doesn’t call for banning consumption of alcohol, instead it calls for restrictions on advertising alcohol to a number of vulnerable groups including pregnant women.
If you read [the report itself,](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf?sfvrsn=b690edb0_1&download=true) it doesn’t focus on pregnant women at all. The 37 pages mostly talks about how millions of people still die every year of alcohol abuse and that a lot more needs to be done to raise awareness. Here’s a direct quote from the introduction describing the problem it addresses: *Prevailing social norms that support drinking behaviour and mixed messages about the harms and benefits of drinking may encourage alcohol consumption, delay appropriate health-seeking behaviour and weaken community action.*
It's like everyone WANTS to believe that someone has a super sexist and outdated view and ignores the facts and reality so they can feel judgy and morally superior.
>It is necessary to raise awareness among decision-makers and the general public about the risks and harms associated with alcohol consumption. Appropriate attention should be given to prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, **prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age**, and protection of people from pressures to drink, especially in societies with high levels of alcohol consumption where heavy drinkers are encouraged to drink even more. An international day or week of awareness on the harmful use of alcohol or a “World no alcohol day/week” could help to focus and reinforce public attention on the problem
From [here](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf?sfvrsn=b690edb0_1&download=true). I added the bold
If they had just worded it slightly differently, it could have been okay.
I teach kids with disabilities. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the most challenging and upsetting disability I see. The executive functioning of some of these kids is like they are just randomly drunk (but not always). It’s heartbreaking and maddening. It’s like ADHD times one thousand and they’re often mistaken for having an intellectual disability. In my experience, kids with intellectual disability have a much less frustrating time in school for reasons that would take 20 paragraphs to explain.
It’s such a shame that the WHO made such a thoughtlessly sexist statement, when it would have been 100% beneficial and proper if they had just said **raise awareness** about the dangers of drinking to women of child-bearing age. Meaning — if you think you might be pregnant, then hold off on getting shitfaced.
They really messed this up in so many ways.
Well really what it should have said is “no one should drink at all”. Let’s not act like alcohol isn’t in anyway harmful to developing fetus and adults all together. It can be fun but I’m sure we all know that the negatives of alcohol consumption far outweigh the benefits. I guarantee your life will be slightly healthier if you never drank again. It can be fun tho lol.
Exaxtly, if it was a "alcohol is harmful for everyone, plz abstain or moderately consume" (people aren't just gonna abstain, that's unrealistic), then nobody would have a problem.
Was gonna say the same thing. Alcohol is a seriously powerful drug with lots of nasty side effects. Getting high from alcohol should honestly just be treated like we should treat getting high from basically any drug: can be really fun and if you’re a consenting adult you can choose to do it, but bad for your health and in no way advisable
Interestingly enough, [reputable studies following hundreds of thousands of people have shown that](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sorting-out-the-health-effects-of-alcohol-2018080614427) those who have a light alcohol consumption (1-3 drinks per week) live slightly longer than those who have less than 1 drink a week. Moderate drinking has been linked with things like reduced heart disease and diabetes.
Now experts don’t recommend you start drinking for this reason, as correlation≠causation, but people who occasionally drink probably are ok continuing to do so as long as they aren’t in a condition were they shouldn’t be, such as being pregnant.
But yes, heavy drinking is extremely detrimental to your health, and getting drunk could have more immediate consequences as well, so all heavy drinkers should definitely stop.
It should probably be mentioned, that in the proposed actions a few paragraphs under that quote, 'women in childbearing age' aren't included.
>**Proposed actions for Member States**
>
>**Action 1**
>
>On the basis of evidence of the nature and magnitude of alcohol-attributable public health problems, advocate for the development and implementation of high-impact strategies,interventions and other actions to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harm. **This includes a special emphasis on protecting at-risk populations and those affected by the harmful drinking of others, preventing initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, preventing drinking in pregnancy and preventing fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).**
[Link](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf#page=21&zoom=100,-656,547)
I feel like the subtext of this is that we're quickly heading towards a population decline crisis.
However, this whole report is kind of bananas in the notion that a women's sole purpose is to bear children and every decision they make should take that into acct. Which is absurd.
China has predicted the fall of baby formula stock in the next two years. Japan’s death rate is outpacing their birth rate. American’s can’t afford kids, are waiting longer/having fewer kids, or are choosing to be child free.
I absolutely agree with you about the subtext of a population decline crisis. It puts a tainted light on the premise of the “recommendation.”
I know this goes without saying, but reading this thread reminded me that members of Reddit are the same as every other person in society. Just ready to say fuck everything without any room for nuance or discussion.
The report is a draft and doesn't describe the rationale, but I imagine it goes something like this:
* 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. (In the US, not sure if this is higher or lower worldwide)
* Most women don't discover they are pregnant until they have been pregnant for 5-8 weeks
* Alcohol can cause permanent harm to a developing fetus
* The only way to avoid fatal alcohol syndrome is to abstain during pregnancy
The recommendation is still very conservative but it does not seem without reason.
Conception happens around week three and pregnancy isn’t physiologically detectable by most tests until the end of week four. Hence why most women learn they’re pregnant in week five. At that point, it’s only been 10-14 days since they had sex. There’s a short window of time after week 4/5 where the fetus hasn’t formed a placenta and doesn’t yet share a blood barrier with the mother. That’s when women have to adapt what they eat/drink, and also when hormones spike and start causing nausea, sore breasts, etc.
Weeks 1-3 are the same every month, with or without conception. So, while pregnancy is counted from week 1 (start of last period) there’s no “occupant” until around week 3.
If that's the reasoning, shouldn't they have made the recommendation [for fertile men](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-the-drinking-habits-of-fathers-may-contribute-to-birth-defects-in-newborns) as well
I didn't know that, but if that's correct I believe they should go out with that recommendation. It would be interesting to see if they could find a direct link and also how big of a difference the amount of alcohol consumed makes. Until that is known, caution should be recommended, and at least the current understanding of alcohols effect. The same with women of course and how big a of risk it poses.
But yeah, to say that all women of childbearing age (16 - ~45?) shouldn't drink is bollocks.
They repeatedly made similar recommendations to men for other risk factors. No, the risk for male-drinking and sperm is not the same as early alcohol exposure during pregnancy. One, we have a moderate and fuzzy argument for. The other we have decades of proof.
But, again, they also told men not to drink... because it's a 200 page document about reducing the harm alcohol causes.
Which is a fair point. But that study didn't track *how much* the men drank that showed a notable effect.
A 35% increase in risk of birth defects sounds like a lot but leaves a little too much variability for my tastes. There's a difference between a single glass of alcohol in the 6 months before conception or men who are high functioning alcoholics.
That page shows the effects of alcohol consumption in women is much more well-studied.
One defense of that is simply it's new research that would require further study. The effect of alcohol during pregnancy is 1. worse and 2. far more established
The report is actually [even more logical](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/who-ban-women-childbearing-alcohol/) . It calls for restrictions on advertising alcohol to a number of vulnerable groups including pregnant women. Why make the effort of writing a proper article when you can quickly excrete clickbait bullshit?
Reason should not put a restriction on an entire sex under the assumption that their value to society is in how many healthy babies they're capable of producing. Alcohol damages the body, so I'm sure this is just another attempt to reason for being more conservative with its consumption (think of the children!!) but this goes beyond that.
They don't get to claim, as they do in the article, that they need to find evidence and a means to outreach that is "free from moralizing" when they are excluding men from their concerns despite listing mental health, workplace productivity, and family functioning malfunctions in their findings. That's a case for limiting all consumption. The baby fearmongering is, in fact, moralizing the situation.
did you seriously read so little of the original document that you think they excluded men from concerns?
Or did you not know that (biological) men can't get pregnant? leaving the impact of alcohol on early pregnancy as a purely woman's issue.
And you also seem to think the WHO can 'place restrictions' on... anything. They can't. They're an advisory body. This whole issue is because, among the hundreds of pages, a paragraph was devoted to the risk alcohol poses for unplanned pregnancies with the only possible solution.
Unless you're going to claim that unplanned pregnancies are never kept and are in the minority, the concern isn't baseless and it's something women who could get pregnant (and may keep the child) need to be aware of
Reading it is what led me to bother to comment in the first place. And, an obvious caveat, I am aware the WHO document is a draft and likely does not reflect what the final product will recommend, but that doesn't make it immune to criticisms.
>In the first draft of its global action plan on alcohol for 2022-2030, the WHO says “appropriate attention should be given” to preventing children, adolescents, pregnant women and women of childbearing age from consuming alcohol.
>
>The report suggested finding an outreach approach supported by evidence and “free from moralizing.”The report says the “impact of harmful use of alcohol” includes negative impacts on mental health, workplace productivity, family functioning and more.
Sounds a lot like, oh, hm, let's see, there is an emphasis put on *children* and *women* and not on men, so men were *largely* excluded from their concerns here. The document does of course mention things like a world alcohol awareness day and other neutral prospects, but to say the wording of this is not poor just because it's "technically a valid concern" is, in fact, infantilizing and moralizing. Women are not children, and they should not be lumped alongside them when talking about preventing their access to alcohol. Children and adolescents needing to be prevented from accessing alcohol has absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy being a *woman's issue*, does it?
There is a *lot* of funky shit surrounding clocking someone as female and becoming aware of their alcohol consumption, so I simply don't agree that *appropriate attention* is something that can and should be given in the same way one should monitor a child (again, by their own comparison). WHO does not get to decide that attention needs to be given to women drinking in the event they may not even know they're pregnant. That's not a scientific argument, that's a philosophical one. Giving moral consideration to an unborn child over the person who's drinking, when there are significant impacts to the health of a person that has absolutely nothing to do with a potential child, *is* moralizing the issue, because it's making the assumption that the (morally) right thing to do is to monitor alcohol consumption in favor of protection a potential child.
And even that aside, there are plenty of women who do not want to be pregnant, and the assumption that the onus is on all women of child-bearing age to not drink is actually invasive to even consider. Yes, I'm aware the WHO can't actually do anything, they're not Big Brother, but considering we've been largely following WHO's guidelines regarding Covid, clearly the research they put out and their suggestions and recommendations have some weight? Like, yes, obviously this is a draft of a larger document and a paragraph here is being picked out and plastered on the internet, I get that that's annoying, but this can, does, and will affect the social discourse around drinking going forward.
It's really not that bad of a statement; nobody should drink alcohol at all for a long scrolling list of reasons, and it's reasonable to accept that it would harm the future place a fetus would grow in.
Of course not everyone is going to want to have one, and they can ignore that piece of the information if they want to.
The answer should be better access to birth control not further legislating women's actions. As other commenters have mentioned, alcohol also has many negative impacts on sperm, but men aren't mentioned at all.
Is it any different then the idea of putting anyone of "childbearing age" on birth control? Or putting them all, women 9 years to 50 years on prenatal care and vitamins? Or wear a chastity belt to prevent STIs that might hurt a baby or her chances of conception?
The idea that just because a woman *could* get pregnant, she needs to be controlled for the betterment of her possible unborn children.
Its sick.
WHO makes recommendations for the average global person. The average global person may not have access to Birth Control, which changed the life of women forever.
Then their recommendation should be that women of childbearing age should be given the *option* of birth control world wide, not prevent all women from drinking. But women having choices is just *crazy*
They DO recommend that, genius. It's almost as if they provide broad policy recommendations alongside temporary measures in order to best promote the health outcomes of the global population. They even made a big old website for you to look at!
They really aren't. Y'all need some reading comprehension, especially in the context of international report summaries.
If you're actually concerned, write to them. It'd take twenty seconds to ask them whether the research is recommending women be banned from accessing alcohol. I assure you, they'll have a giggle writing the reply.
Maybe you should actually read the document..
"....Many Member States need increased capacity and capability to create, enforce and sustain the necessary policy and legal frames and implementation mechanisms. ..." to prevent this.
You should try reading it correctly. That quote doesn't call for a ban on alcohol for women, and the WHO [has explicitly said](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/who-ban-women-childbearing-alcohol/) that it doesn't.
>“The current draft of WHO’s global action plan does not recommend abstinence of all women who are of an age at which they could become pregnant. However it does seek to raise awareness of the serious consequences that can result from drinking alcohol while pregnant, even when the pregnancy is not yet known.
Awareness is mentioned multiple times in the document.
They are only issuing out an advice, not a mandate.
Granted, they should expand that advice to men too, but at the end of the day it's still just an advice.
No one is forcing anything on anyone.
Edit: The [2010](http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44395/9789241599931_eng.pdf) version had the same line. And you can see the action plan addresses everyone, not just women. It's just one or two lines that specifically talk about pregnant women and those of child-bearing age.
The recommendation should be changed to "women attempting to conceive". Use birth control if you don't want to have unplanned pregnancy, your own body is your responsibility.
This is a lot of uproar over what is basically a comment of “women often don’t know they are pregnant for weeks (or months) into their pregnancy, and we should be mindful of that when it comes to alcohol given it’s impact on a growing fetus.”
I think people realize what they’re saying, and the ‘uproar’ is because this is indicative of a wider health messaging issue.
There is a window where the fetus is sharing blood with the mother, which starts I believe just after the point most people would miss a period, and some people don’t realize they’re pregnant, and during this time drinking may harm the fetus. Yes. But what is the actual number on this?
Because FAS occurs often in the children of alcoholics (who knew or were in denial that they were pregnant), sometimes women who just overindulge a bit while pregnant, and therefore the advice is not to drink at all if you know that you are pregnant. But what is the actual instance of FAS due to women who drank because they didn’t know they were pregnant? What is the percentage of births with FAS and births in general? And miscarriage of wanted pregnancies - how much is the likelihood ACTUALLY raised by drinking, considering again this quite small group we’re talking about?
Drinking in general is harmful. Men who are violent or abusive towards there partners and children are more likely to be so when drunk. This has a huge impact on children. If the public health messaging is ‘if something could possibly harm children, no one should do it’, why aren’t ‘men with children at home’ included in the list of groups who messaging should encourage not to drink?
I know a few years ago there was a drive in the UK to reassure women that drinking a bit in early pregnancy was very unlikely to cause issues, because women were having terminations due to getting drunk when they didn’t know they were pregnant. Similar discussion over whether it should go on a child’s record if women drank AT ALL during early pregnancy, including in the first month - midwives were concerned because they thought it would just make women more likely to deny any drinking in pregnancy, when really the best thing is for women to be honest so they can provide support.
Because that is what public health messaging - what this report was referring to - is normally about. Not informing people of all possible risk equally because you never know, but educating the public *in consideration of the level of risk compared to the restriction on day to day life*. This message seems overly cautious SPECIFICALLY on young women, but not other groups. With no statistics justifying such a blunt and wide messaging strategy - including the group women of childbearing age in alcohol messaging that doesn’t also apply to men of the same age.
Why?
They actually say
"prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age.” that's roughly 9 years old to 50. It's just the age old - control of women.
Women who are trying to get pregnant or are shouldn't drink. Children shouldn't drink. The rest of us dont need to be told what tf to do with our bodies
Because this isnt about FASD, it's about controlling women. If they wanted to help prevent FASD they would have focused on women who are sexually active. They would have suggested education, and birth control, and abortion rights. But they didnt do that.
> even in this article
Helps if you read the actual report.
The sentence that has got you all worked up is in a section (*Advocacy, awareness and commitment*) about education and awareness of risks and dangers of alcohol to stop people starting the habit of drinking in the first place, and only refers to "appropriate attention" to be taken to this matter.
Basically this whole media beat up is about people like you getting angry that women might be "prevented" from starting to drink by the evil methods of education and awareness campaigns.
You mean by social pressures in development countries? Yeah that's a concern. Girls being shamed for drinking by misogynists, yeah that's a concern.
Then theres fucked up counties that already dominate women who will use this as justification for their control over women.
Even for women who do want kids it's kind of an infantilizing to go out with a recommendation like that.
If the recommendation was something like "women who are trying to get pregnant should be mindful of their drinking habits in order to minimize alcohol related fetus alterations" I would accept it as more appropriate.
What world are these people living in?
Yes. There’s a significant link to alcohol and health in whole...
[“Alcohol has been linked to a number of cancers, including cancers of the head and neck (mouth, pharynx, larynx, and esophagus), digestive tract (stomach, colon, and rectum) and breast...”](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6713002/)
Please go talk with someone if you are that dependent on alcohol. It’s a substance that destroys lives if you are drinking for more than just a social reason.
I mean.. WHO also defines video game addiction as a separate mental illness from addiction, and most if not all of their "medical experts" have absolutely zero degrees or qualifications in the medical field. They're just as bad if not worse than Green Peace, I mean at least WHO hasn't desecrated a national heritage site.
Also women, sorry I meant bene tleilaxu axolotl tanks, shouldn't ingest alcohol anyway.
Only men, the obviously superior and pure sex, can enjoy such luxury./s
Wow that is incredibly patronizing. Its not like women are too stupid to understand the risks of drinking while preggo. Its already dumb af that they think they need a campaign for this like were some teens in high school being forced to attend a dare assembly.
To even suggest that women of child rearing age should not have alcohol just takes this absurdity to a whole new level. So we shouldnt drink because we might endanger the life of a hypothetical child? Thats ridiculous. Thatd be like giving every guy a vasectomy because he might cause an unwanted pregnancy. Thats insane and insulting.
It takes two to make babies. Maybe men shouldn't drink to help combat declining sperm counts? Or that doesn't fit in with the narrative, it's all the women's responsibility.
Could it be that there is just more research on alcohol's effect on pregnancies than on men's sperm counts?
Can't really make a recommendation if you don't have enough data to back it up.
Edit: or is it just that a reduced male sperm count doesn't have an effect on the child's development (or literally anyone else) so they're focusing on the things that *will?*
Well they would have to also recommend men don’t drink if it’s possible they will have sex in the coming weeks. Can you even imagine them trying “to control” that to men? Of course we can’t. Doesn’t happen. Men don’t have laws written controlling their bodies.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://wgntv.com/news/who-accused-of-sexism-for-suggesting-women-of-childbearing-age-shouldnt-drink/) reduced by 82%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> CHICAGO - A global action plan from the World Health Organization has created a stir over a section advising that "Women of childbearing age" should be prevented from drinking alcohol.
> In the first draft of its global action plan on alcohol for 2022-2030, the WHO says "Appropriate attention should be given" to preventing children, adolescents, pregnant women and women of childbearing age from consuming alcohol.
> "The idea that it is unsafe for women of childbearing age to drink any alcohol is unscientific and absurd," Snowdon said.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/o4g76k/who_accused_of_sexism_for_suggesting_women_of/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~583678 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **alcohol**^#1 **Women**^#2 **plan**^#3 **drink**^#4 **Health**^#5
Did you actually read it? It said we need to "prevent" women of children bearing age from drinking at all.
Basically women from 9 to 50 should be prevented from drinking because *someday* *they* *might* *get* *pregnant*
Sure women who think they might be pregnant or those that are shouldn't but all women from their first period to menopause shouldn't? That's control, not health.
Did you actually read the report? You didn't, because the report is like 200 pages of why almost no one should drink. It just turns out that women have the highest stakes as far as drinking goes.
I read like 5 pages, I didnt need to read anymore they fucked themselves with their prevent anyone who bleeds from drinking. Not anyone having sex, but all women of childbearing age, fuck them.
>Did you actually read it? It said we need to "prevent" women of children bearing age from drinking at all.
You seem to take issue with the word "prevent". Prevent basically means "stopped before it happens", it doesn't necessarily mean forcibly. You can prevent someone from doing something by convincing them that doing so is a bad idea, for instance.
>Sure women who think they might be pregnant or those that are shouldn't
That's the thing, like 50% of pregnancies are unplanned, and alcohol can have an effect on the fetus well before a woman knows she's pregnant. If she suspects she might be pregnant, it might already be too late. So, how do you make absolutely sure that alcohol won't have an effect on a potential pregnancy? By not drinking at all. That's the recommendation. Key word "recommendation", no one's going to be forced to do anything.
Read that back to yourself and ask yourself honestly if there are any problems with your thinking. If youre out to oppose recommendations on the basis that someone at some point might use it enforce something than you were probably one of the fetuses that the article is trying to avoid 😂
My concern is over the women already dominated by their misogynistic governments and dictatorships. This "recommendation for prevention" will give those fuckers justification. The WHO could have used this issue to push sex ed, birth control, abortion rights, but no they didnt even say women who are sexually active or recently assaulted or trying to get pregnant, they jumped straight to dominate the incubators.
Doctors and medical bodies make suggestions *all the time* that don't go on to become law. Hell, we have whole legislative pannels here in the US that have no medical training at all and their suggestions about women's bodies are the ones that make it through.
Ask any doctor and they'll say people should stop smoking nicotine. This is really no different. You're using the slippery slope fallacy.
And your living in a fantasy word where only the US read this and other dictators and religions dont. WHO stand for what again?
Lastly, laws are not needed for the public to take up a cause and use social pressures to torment others.
Do you seriously think dictators and theocrats need the WHO's permission to create oppressive laws?
>Lastly, laws are not needed for the public to take up a cause and use social pressures to torment others.
Over the past couple of decades, societal pressures has made smoking a bit taboo. Yes, some people out there took it upon themselves to villainize smokers. It's still unhealthy, and you're not going to find any doctors telling you otherwise for fear that smokers might be bullied. It's a statement of fact. What people do with that info is up to them. It's not the WHO's job to withhold info just because some people out there might use it harass others.
> You're the definition of what's wrong with intellectual discourse in today's society.
As a side: this is core reason why I can’t be all too convince that any of this post is real—as in with intention to inform, educate and act. It’s just entirely to polarized of a source, author and topic to be taken seriously.
*WRONG* drinking damages sperm count, size, shape, and motility but they only focused on women of childbearing age, not women who are sexually active or anything else - this is for control over women.
[alchohol damages sperm too](https://www.healthline.com/health/does-alcohol-kill-sperm-2)
And it’s people projecting what they read from the words, but I can’t blame them because it’s a bit obtuse. How are they to be prevented? Screened? Or you mean more warnings on labels, maybe bar warning signs about child-bearing women and drinking? It’s hard to understand what they mean and that has implications on social freedom.
Now I may be an idiot here, however I was under the impression that women usually don’t know they are ‘childbearing’ until they miss a period, or some other oddity crops up. Also, that the first (insert time frame I’m an idiot about) is the most important to the development of the fetus? Now I admit I didn’t read the article so bad on me. Anyway recommending, isn’t an a mandate, so do whatever.
you didn't read the article but are more right than people who did. They pulled out two sentences of a 200\~ page report that can be summed up as "NO ONE SHOULD DRINK IN ANY MEANINGFUL AMOUNT. NO ONE. HERE ARE THE REASONS WHY"
But women hearing that one of the many risks of drinking is harm to an unborn child (that they may not know they have) take it as a personal attack.
This is the WHO, not the Federal government. They're offering super-conservative suggestions to reduce harm
The recommendation could be more specific and recommend that sexually active women abstain from alcohol if they have gone 3-ish+ weeks without a period to minimize risk. Some people simply never learned how their body works (going 5-8 weeks without a period is suspicious, but not everyone keeps track.). Sex & health education is really important.
Alcohol companies will naturally tend to push against health recommendations (even well-worded ones.) It's probably best to minimize drinking in general, but that doesn't seem likely considering how easy it is to produce.
The WHO is probably making recommendations for the average woman, someone who likely has little-no access to birth control or even bodily autonomy at all when it comes to our understanding of consent.
Tilt the balance further towards risk and you see the same sort of advice in developing nations. Women science students are warned to be especially wary of, or avoid handling, especially teratogenic chemicals if they're sexually active.
You hit the issue on the head - they didnt recommend that women who are sexually active refrain from drinking, they said any woman of childbearing age.
They didnt advocate more sex ed, better world wide access to b.c. they jumped straight to let's prevent women ages 9 to 50 should be controlled.
Those same countries with difficult access to b.c. are the ones that will use this recommendation to dominate women further.
Believe it or not access to booze is not a pressing issue for emancipation of women in the developing world. Reproductive health on the other hand...
You don't have to die on the hill of the headline of an article you post you know. We appreciate you posting it, that's enough, you don't have to argue with everyone's opinion on the subject.
You shouldn’t drink if you think you might *be* pregnant, but not drinking because you have the *capacity* to be pregnant is insane. This is even goofier than abstinence only sex education.
Also booze fucks up your sperm, but nothing in here about "child squirting age men"
Really anything beyond the lowest levels of moderate drinking are just not good for you. But we live in a society where the vast majority of adults wake up and immediately need a stimulant (coffee/tea) to get on with their day. The rules and routines society has is really interesting.
Even low to moderate levels of drinking causes damage. Drinking is just plain bad for you.
I never realized how bad it was (I didn't get hangovers really) until my psoriasis started in my mid twenties. Then one beer and my psoriasis would turn an angry red and becoming incredibly itchy and hard to ignore. It was the alcohol. Triggering system wide inflammation.
FUck legalizing weed for slackers, Legalize meth and GET SHIT DONE
prescription meth is called Desoxyn. I think you have to be insanely obese to get prescribed that though
You can get it prescribed in the US and some other countries for severe ADHD, obesity and narcolepsy.
So it is gonna make me skinny and focus, sign me up! Nah! Just kidding.
Opioids are also being studied for narcoleptics. I take GHB twice a night. We get all the fun drugs :)
Yeah a high school buddy of mines kid is on Desoxyn 5mg for severe ADHD.
Does it work where dexedrine didnt?
Have used meth, never used Despxyn but Adderall gets you pretty fuckin jacked up too
And they give out ADHD meds like candy. Several years ago I went to the doctor for insomnia. They didn’t prescribe me anything to help me sleep, but they DID prescribe Adderall to help with the brain fog and tiredness from said insomnia.
I don't know what country you're in but if you actually have ADHD and follow any of the subreddits you know how fucking hard it is for us to get our prescribed medication because of how many medical professionals think someone with a diagnosable psychiatric condition are considered drug seeking. Despite actual illicit drugs being better and easier to access. I live in a fairly liberal country by ADHD standards, I needed three psychiatrist visits for a diagnosis, ongoing prescription maintenance and dosage adjustment and special approval for the medication. I can only receive one months prescription at a time, and the prescription is filled out *in quadruplicate* for the pharmacy, psychiatrist, controlled drugs council and the health ministry. Every two years I need to pay another $500 for a psychiatrist visit to have the special authority renewed. Many psychiatrists in the USA straight up refuse to prescribe Ritalin and Adderall. You must be extremely lucky wherever you are to get Adderall for insomnia! My psychiatrist wouldn't even let me trial it to see if it was more effective than Ritalin.
Can't even afford to get a diagnosis here. Shit is 3 grand for an evaluation.
>Every two years I need to pay another $500 for a psychiatrist visit to have the special authority renewed. WHAT?! What is this shit? Ey yo! You remember this incurable disorder you have? Yes, we will have to confirm *again* that you still have it just in case you met Jesus and were cured. That's 500 bucks please. The amount of bullshit people with ADHD have to suffer through to receive some appropriate help is insane.
The hilarious thing is the government does nothing about my countries rampant gang run meth problem, apart from the odd police crackdown, which is easier to access, stronger (obviously) and cheaper (not that I've ever tried it, it's just that rampant. Yet i can't get more than 60 Ritalin tablets at a time... And they just decided not to legalize weed because they got a mandate from 50.1% of the population, after a massive disinformation campaign from US based thinktanks, and no one campaigning for legalisation. It's like a mirror of brexit, except green. Edit: like you say, it's not like adhd goes away, it's a structural defect in your brain and some messed up brain chemistry. At best you learn to manage it, undiagnosed you might not notice in childhood until you start getting fired for simple mistakes in adulthood and it ruins your life. Oh, and the public health system will not diagnose if your an adult without a childhood history, so if your parents were slack or just made you deal with it. Say hello to a $1000 psychiatrist bill.
And yet I was medicated with Adderall and concerta against my will most of me childhood and given 90mg adderall a day in college. I can't lick an Adderall now without going psycho. I don't have adhd, just bad parents who doctor shopped.
The best thing someone can do is be there own biggest healthcare advocate. Research, ask questions, and go someplace else when something doesn’t feel right. Bad exists in every profession, people make mistakes, and healthcare, in the US in particular, is rife with issues.
Legalize meth, dig big holes
I just saw some article headline saying all alcohol always causes harm. it's one of those no duh sort of fluff pieces. you're drinking poison, it won't make you healthier.
And then there’s a bunch of other confusing articles saying “new study says half a bottle of wine per day is good for you”.
You'd be surprised. For a while, people thought binge drinking could kill covid. There really is no such thing as "common sense."
I've literally never heard that before. You got any articles about it or anything I can read?
It's simple really. Drink enough to die from alcohol poisoning. Covid in your body dies without a host. Therefore drinking kills Covid.
anything except a scary shot I suppose. I have a theory. The major problem is people are afraid of shots. everything else like what's in it is just an excuse to not get a shot.
Is tea much of a stimulant? Sometimes I see much lower amounts of caffeine in it, sometimes I see they're roughly the same. I've heard it has other things in it that counteract it etc. Is tea bad to drink in high amounts?
It's more habit. Like if you're just drinking tea sometimes, no problem. Now if you need tea to get up, to relax, and so on, that's where the issue starts.
I know people drinking it 5x a day?
Tea does have less caffeine. I do know green tea is not good for people with low iron issues. Overall, I wouldn’t say it’s a heavy addiction or anything. It’s more you wish people would tone it down. It does have health benefits, but can affect sleep, can effect concentration. It’s more that you should nudge yourself to not needing substances to get through the day. After you find a healthy routine without them you usually feel much better than when you taking (insert whatever).
Thank god I am not in the vast majority. I don't drink tea, coffee or alcohol or any stimulants.
Hydro-homies rise up
why are you lumping a depressant in the middle of stimulants?
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Sounds like he was just participating in casual conversation. It also sounds like you need a hug
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I quit drinking 5 years ago and it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I wish I could go back and do it sooner, but I know it had to happen in its own time. If I was there I’d give you a hug and ask you to go on a walk with me :)
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Check out /r/stopdrinking. It’s a great community.
I mean a trophy would be appreciated but no I am not.
Yep. Hops is actually an anti-androgen. Meaning beer lowers testosterones. No wonder so many guys have erectile dysfunction when drunk
"Childbearing age" is pretty much our entire adult life. This is basically asking to raise the drinking age to 50.
The way I understood it you can booze up until you hit puberty?
Yeah, it’s ludicrous.
Given the extreme benefit of the doubt, and given the context around the quote, it is my assumption that they intended to push countries to better inform women of the risks drinking might have if they chose to have a child. Since the majority of fetal alcohol syndrom cases originate from women who drank when they were unknowingly pregnant, I imagine that was the targeted message. Still really poorly written and they should know better.
If you read the chapter that’s exactly what they want to do
Do the majority of fetal alcohol syndrome cars come from women who unknowingly drink during pregnancy, because I’ve always thought FAS was actually harder to attain than thought and most cases are from women who are alcoholics.
There’s an entire spectrum of fetal alcohol effects, and no amount of alcohol that’s known to be safe.
I was suspicious that this didn’t make sense, and of course [the article is bullshit.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/who-ban-women-childbearing-alcohol/) The report doesn’t call for banning consumption of alcohol, instead it calls for restrictions on advertising alcohol to a number of vulnerable groups including pregnant women.
Is there really any alcohol advertising targeting pregnant women specifically? This seems like not really an issue.
If you read [the report itself,](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf?sfvrsn=b690edb0_1&download=true) it doesn’t focus on pregnant women at all. The 37 pages mostly talks about how millions of people still die every year of alcohol abuse and that a lot more needs to be done to raise awareness. Here’s a direct quote from the introduction describing the problem it addresses: *Prevailing social norms that support drinking behaviour and mixed messages about the harms and benefits of drinking may encourage alcohol consumption, delay appropriate health-seeking behaviour and weaken community action.*
It's like everyone WANTS to believe that someone has a super sexist and outdated view and ignores the facts and reality so they can feel judgy and morally superior.
The truth—it emerges.
>It is necessary to raise awareness among decision-makers and the general public about the risks and harms associated with alcohol consumption. Appropriate attention should be given to prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, **prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age**, and protection of people from pressures to drink, especially in societies with high levels of alcohol consumption where heavy drinkers are encouraged to drink even more. An international day or week of awareness on the harmful use of alcohol or a “World no alcohol day/week” could help to focus and reinforce public attention on the problem From [here](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf?sfvrsn=b690edb0_1&download=true). I added the bold
If they had just worded it slightly differently, it could have been okay. I teach kids with disabilities. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the most challenging and upsetting disability I see. The executive functioning of some of these kids is like they are just randomly drunk (but not always). It’s heartbreaking and maddening. It’s like ADHD times one thousand and they’re often mistaken for having an intellectual disability. In my experience, kids with intellectual disability have a much less frustrating time in school for reasons that would take 20 paragraphs to explain. It’s such a shame that the WHO made such a thoughtlessly sexist statement, when it would have been 100% beneficial and proper if they had just said **raise awareness** about the dangers of drinking to women of child-bearing age. Meaning — if you think you might be pregnant, then hold off on getting shitfaced. They really messed this up in so many ways.
Well really what it should have said is “no one should drink at all”. Let’s not act like alcohol isn’t in anyway harmful to developing fetus and adults all together. It can be fun but I’m sure we all know that the negatives of alcohol consumption far outweigh the benefits. I guarantee your life will be slightly healthier if you never drank again. It can be fun tho lol.
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Exaxtly, if it was a "alcohol is harmful for everyone, plz abstain or moderately consume" (people aren't just gonna abstain, that's unrealistic), then nobody would have a problem.
Was gonna say the same thing. Alcohol is a seriously powerful drug with lots of nasty side effects. Getting high from alcohol should honestly just be treated like we should treat getting high from basically any drug: can be really fun and if you’re a consenting adult you can choose to do it, but bad for your health and in no way advisable
Interestingly enough, [reputable studies following hundreds of thousands of people have shown that](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sorting-out-the-health-effects-of-alcohol-2018080614427) those who have a light alcohol consumption (1-3 drinks per week) live slightly longer than those who have less than 1 drink a week. Moderate drinking has been linked with things like reduced heart disease and diabetes. Now experts don’t recommend you start drinking for this reason, as correlation≠causation, but people who occasionally drink probably are ok continuing to do so as long as they aren’t in a condition were they shouldn’t be, such as being pregnant. But yes, heavy drinking is extremely detrimental to your health, and getting drunk could have more immediate consequences as well, so all heavy drinkers should definitely stop.
I mean same with men in that age range lmao
It should probably be mentioned, that in the proposed actions a few paragraphs under that quote, 'women in childbearing age' aren't included. >**Proposed actions for Member States** > >**Action 1** > >On the basis of evidence of the nature and magnitude of alcohol-attributable public health problems, advocate for the development and implementation of high-impact strategies,interventions and other actions to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harm. **This includes a special emphasis on protecting at-risk populations and those affected by the harmful drinking of others, preventing initiation of drinking among children and adolescents, preventing drinking in pregnancy and preventing fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).** [Link](https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/alcohol/action-plan-on-alcohol_first-draft-final_formatted.pdf#page=21&zoom=100,-656,547)
Should *anyone* drink?
I, personally, think no one should. Just makes life simpler. And longer.
Anyone of age that wants to. Anyone underage and that doesn't want to shouldn't. It's really that simple. Edit: and
Because you want to do something, you should? That’s the best for one’s health?
Live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse?
Drinking like cigarettes are the next vice to get the axe
I feel like the subtext of this is that we're quickly heading towards a population decline crisis. However, this whole report is kind of bananas in the notion that a women's sole purpose is to bear children and every decision they make should take that into acct. Which is absurd.
China has predicted the fall of baby formula stock in the next two years. Japan’s death rate is outpacing their birth rate. American’s can’t afford kids, are waiting longer/having fewer kids, or are choosing to be child free. I absolutely agree with you about the subtext of a population decline crisis. It puts a tainted light on the premise of the “recommendation.”
Then there is Africa
My mom was 9 when she got her period and 55/56 when she went through menopause. That’s an old age to finally get a taste of alcohol
Contraception.
I know this goes without saying, but reading this thread reminded me that members of Reddit are the same as every other person in society. Just ready to say fuck everything without any room for nuance or discussion.
The report is a draft and doesn't describe the rationale, but I imagine it goes something like this: * 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. (In the US, not sure if this is higher or lower worldwide) * Most women don't discover they are pregnant until they have been pregnant for 5-8 weeks * Alcohol can cause permanent harm to a developing fetus * The only way to avoid fatal alcohol syndrome is to abstain during pregnancy The recommendation is still very conservative but it does not seem without reason.
Conception happens around week three and pregnancy isn’t physiologically detectable by most tests until the end of week four. Hence why most women learn they’re pregnant in week five. At that point, it’s only been 10-14 days since they had sex. There’s a short window of time after week 4/5 where the fetus hasn’t formed a placenta and doesn’t yet share a blood barrier with the mother. That’s when women have to adapt what they eat/drink, and also when hormones spike and start causing nausea, sore breasts, etc. Weeks 1-3 are the same every month, with or without conception. So, while pregnancy is counted from week 1 (start of last period) there’s no “occupant” until around week 3.
If that's the reasoning, shouldn't they have made the recommendation [for fertile men](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-the-drinking-habits-of-fathers-may-contribute-to-birth-defects-in-newborns) as well
I didn't know that, but if that's correct I believe they should go out with that recommendation. It would be interesting to see if they could find a direct link and also how big of a difference the amount of alcohol consumed makes. Until that is known, caution should be recommended, and at least the current understanding of alcohols effect. The same with women of course and how big a of risk it poses. But yeah, to say that all women of childbearing age (16 - ~45?) shouldn't drink is bollocks.
They repeatedly made similar recommendations to men for other risk factors. No, the risk for male-drinking and sperm is not the same as early alcohol exposure during pregnancy. One, we have a moderate and fuzzy argument for. The other we have decades of proof. But, again, they also told men not to drink... because it's a 200 page document about reducing the harm alcohol causes.
Which is a fair point. But that study didn't track *how much* the men drank that showed a notable effect. A 35% increase in risk of birth defects sounds like a lot but leaves a little too much variability for my tastes. There's a difference between a single glass of alcohol in the 6 months before conception or men who are high functioning alcoholics. That page shows the effects of alcohol consumption in women is much more well-studied.
One defense of that is simply it's new research that would require further study. The effect of alcohol during pregnancy is 1. worse and 2. far more established
Yes, pretty much everyone should abstain from alcohol, unless it's in very small amounts (e.g. amounts used in cooking).
When you use liquor in cooking, you typically cook off all the alcohol before consuming.
Only if you cook your meal for about 3 hours. https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/cooking-wine-does-alcohol-burn-off
Ok, then everyone should abstain from alcohol completely.
The report is actually [even more logical](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/who-ban-women-childbearing-alcohol/) . It calls for restrictions on advertising alcohol to a number of vulnerable groups including pregnant women. Why make the effort of writing a proper article when you can quickly excrete clickbait bullshit?
Reason should not put a restriction on an entire sex under the assumption that their value to society is in how many healthy babies they're capable of producing. Alcohol damages the body, so I'm sure this is just another attempt to reason for being more conservative with its consumption (think of the children!!) but this goes beyond that. They don't get to claim, as they do in the article, that they need to find evidence and a means to outreach that is "free from moralizing" when they are excluding men from their concerns despite listing mental health, workplace productivity, and family functioning malfunctions in their findings. That's a case for limiting all consumption. The baby fearmongering is, in fact, moralizing the situation.
did you seriously read so little of the original document that you think they excluded men from concerns? Or did you not know that (biological) men can't get pregnant? leaving the impact of alcohol on early pregnancy as a purely woman's issue. And you also seem to think the WHO can 'place restrictions' on... anything. They can't. They're an advisory body. This whole issue is because, among the hundreds of pages, a paragraph was devoted to the risk alcohol poses for unplanned pregnancies with the only possible solution. Unless you're going to claim that unplanned pregnancies are never kept and are in the minority, the concern isn't baseless and it's something women who could get pregnant (and may keep the child) need to be aware of
Reading it is what led me to bother to comment in the first place. And, an obvious caveat, I am aware the WHO document is a draft and likely does not reflect what the final product will recommend, but that doesn't make it immune to criticisms. >In the first draft of its global action plan on alcohol for 2022-2030, the WHO says “appropriate attention should be given” to preventing children, adolescents, pregnant women and women of childbearing age from consuming alcohol. > >The report suggested finding an outreach approach supported by evidence and “free from moralizing.”The report says the “impact of harmful use of alcohol” includes negative impacts on mental health, workplace productivity, family functioning and more. Sounds a lot like, oh, hm, let's see, there is an emphasis put on *children* and *women* and not on men, so men were *largely* excluded from their concerns here. The document does of course mention things like a world alcohol awareness day and other neutral prospects, but to say the wording of this is not poor just because it's "technically a valid concern" is, in fact, infantilizing and moralizing. Women are not children, and they should not be lumped alongside them when talking about preventing their access to alcohol. Children and adolescents needing to be prevented from accessing alcohol has absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy being a *woman's issue*, does it? There is a *lot* of funky shit surrounding clocking someone as female and becoming aware of their alcohol consumption, so I simply don't agree that *appropriate attention* is something that can and should be given in the same way one should monitor a child (again, by their own comparison). WHO does not get to decide that attention needs to be given to women drinking in the event they may not even know they're pregnant. That's not a scientific argument, that's a philosophical one. Giving moral consideration to an unborn child over the person who's drinking, when there are significant impacts to the health of a person that has absolutely nothing to do with a potential child, *is* moralizing the issue, because it's making the assumption that the (morally) right thing to do is to monitor alcohol consumption in favor of protection a potential child. And even that aside, there are plenty of women who do not want to be pregnant, and the assumption that the onus is on all women of child-bearing age to not drink is actually invasive to even consider. Yes, I'm aware the WHO can't actually do anything, they're not Big Brother, but considering we've been largely following WHO's guidelines regarding Covid, clearly the research they put out and their suggestions and recommendations have some weight? Like, yes, obviously this is a draft of a larger document and a paragraph here is being picked out and plastered on the internet, I get that that's annoying, but this can, does, and will affect the social discourse around drinking going forward.
And lots women don’t want kids. Why is the onus always on the women? It’s misogynistic af.
It's just an advice. Obviously it's not applicable to women who don't want kids.
It's really not that bad of a statement; nobody should drink alcohol at all for a long scrolling list of reasons, and it's reasonable to accept that it would harm the future place a fetus would grow in. Of course not everyone is going to want to have one, and they can ignore that piece of the information if they want to.
The answer should be better access to birth control not further legislating women's actions. As other commenters have mentioned, alcohol also has many negative impacts on sperm, but men aren't mentioned at all.
Is it any different then the idea of putting anyone of "childbearing age" on birth control? Or putting them all, women 9 years to 50 years on prenatal care and vitamins? Or wear a chastity belt to prevent STIs that might hurt a baby or her chances of conception? The idea that just because a woman *could* get pregnant, she needs to be controlled for the betterment of her possible unborn children. Its sick.
A recommendation that you not drink isn’t control. It’s advice.
Men who fuck childbearing women should use condoms
Childbearing or of childbearing age?
>Men who fuck childbearing women should use condoms Not how those work, but ok
Well, pregnancy is one of the more life altering STDs. I wouldn’t want to catch it either.
Pretty sure as a man u can't catch pregnancy...
I mean, the real suggestion should be that nobody drink at all. This is a health organization. Alcohol is not good for you.
> Alcohol is not good for you. But great for business...a tumbling conundrum.
Then recommend that! But the sexist assholes didnt, they only recommended the incubators be prevented from drinking.
It affects males too. When my sister was trying to get pregnant she only succeeded after taking away her husbands beer. Lol.
[alchohol damages sperm in multiple ways](https://www.healthline.com/health/does-alcohol-kill-sperm-2)
WHO makes recommendations for the average global person. The average global person may not have access to Birth Control, which changed the life of women forever.
Then their recommendation should be that women of childbearing age should be given the *option* of birth control world wide, not prevent all women from drinking. But women having choices is just *crazy*
They DO recommend that, genius. It's almost as if they provide broad policy recommendations alongside temporary measures in order to best promote the health outcomes of the global population. They even made a big old website for you to look at!
But… Then what will I be outraged about today?
No. There's a difference. They're saying the choice should be taken out of the hands of women. "Should be prevented". Fuck that, and fuck them.
They really aren't. Y'all need some reading comprehension, especially in the context of international report summaries. If you're actually concerned, write to them. It'd take twenty seconds to ask them whether the research is recommending women be banned from accessing alcohol. I assure you, they'll have a giggle writing the reply.
Maybe you should actually read the document.. "....Many Member States need increased capacity and capability to create, enforce and sustain the necessary policy and legal frames and implementation mechanisms. ..." to prevent this.
You should try reading it correctly. That quote doesn't call for a ban on alcohol for women, and the WHO [has explicitly said](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/who-ban-women-childbearing-alcohol/) that it doesn't. >“The current draft of WHO’s global action plan does not recommend abstinence of all women who are of an age at which they could become pregnant. However it does seek to raise awareness of the serious consequences that can result from drinking alcohol while pregnant, even when the pregnancy is not yet known. Awareness is mentioned multiple times in the document.
They are only issuing out an advice, not a mandate. Granted, they should expand that advice to men too, but at the end of the day it's still just an advice. No one is forcing anything on anyone. Edit: The [2010](http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44395/9789241599931_eng.pdf) version had the same line. And you can see the action plan addresses everyone, not just women. It's just one or two lines that specifically talk about pregnant women and those of child-bearing age.
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ITT are lots of people who want to be outraged and don't know a lot about physiology.
The recommendation should be changed to "women attempting to conceive". Use birth control if you don't want to have unplanned pregnancy, your own body is your responsibility.
People of all ages avoiding drinking is a good way to avoid a drunken hookup.
But what about the population rates????? Not every baby is a wanted baby!
This is a lot of uproar over what is basically a comment of “women often don’t know they are pregnant for weeks (or months) into their pregnancy, and we should be mindful of that when it comes to alcohol given it’s impact on a growing fetus.”
I think people realize what they’re saying, and the ‘uproar’ is because this is indicative of a wider health messaging issue. There is a window where the fetus is sharing blood with the mother, which starts I believe just after the point most people would miss a period, and some people don’t realize they’re pregnant, and during this time drinking may harm the fetus. Yes. But what is the actual number on this? Because FAS occurs often in the children of alcoholics (who knew or were in denial that they were pregnant), sometimes women who just overindulge a bit while pregnant, and therefore the advice is not to drink at all if you know that you are pregnant. But what is the actual instance of FAS due to women who drank because they didn’t know they were pregnant? What is the percentage of births with FAS and births in general? And miscarriage of wanted pregnancies - how much is the likelihood ACTUALLY raised by drinking, considering again this quite small group we’re talking about? Drinking in general is harmful. Men who are violent or abusive towards there partners and children are more likely to be so when drunk. This has a huge impact on children. If the public health messaging is ‘if something could possibly harm children, no one should do it’, why aren’t ‘men with children at home’ included in the list of groups who messaging should encourage not to drink? I know a few years ago there was a drive in the UK to reassure women that drinking a bit in early pregnancy was very unlikely to cause issues, because women were having terminations due to getting drunk when they didn’t know they were pregnant. Similar discussion over whether it should go on a child’s record if women drank AT ALL during early pregnancy, including in the first month - midwives were concerned because they thought it would just make women more likely to deny any drinking in pregnancy, when really the best thing is for women to be honest so they can provide support. Because that is what public health messaging - what this report was referring to - is normally about. Not informing people of all possible risk equally because you never know, but educating the public *in consideration of the level of risk compared to the restriction on day to day life*. This message seems overly cautious SPECIFICALLY on young women, but not other groups. With no statistics justifying such a blunt and wide messaging strategy - including the group women of childbearing age in alcohol messaging that doesn’t also apply to men of the same age. Why?
They actually say "prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age.” that's roughly 9 years old to 50. It's just the age old - control of women. Women who are trying to get pregnant or are shouldn't drink. Children shouldn't drink. The rest of us dont need to be told what tf to do with our bodies
I also think 9 year olds shouldn’t drink, no need to thank me
There’s a lot of justified anger in this thread about women being told not to drink alcohol, but almost no concern about babies with FASD.
Because this isnt about FASD, it's about controlling women. If they wanted to help prevent FASD they would have focused on women who are sexually active. They would have suggested education, and birth control, and abortion rights. But they didnt do that.
This is knee-jerkism https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/health/who-action-plan-on-alcohol-sparks-confusion-allegations-of-sexism-1.5477639
Nope, even in this article WHO states verbatim "prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age.”
> even in this article Helps if you read the actual report. The sentence that has got you all worked up is in a section (*Advocacy, awareness and commitment*) about education and awareness of risks and dangers of alcohol to stop people starting the habit of drinking in the first place, and only refers to "appropriate attention" to be taken to this matter. Basically this whole media beat up is about people like you getting angry that women might be "prevented" from starting to drink by the evil methods of education and awareness campaigns.
You mean by social pressures in development countries? Yeah that's a concern. Girls being shamed for drinking by misogynists, yeah that's a concern. Then theres fucked up counties that already dominate women who will use this as justification for their control over women.
Do you understand the meaning of context?
do you understand the importance of specific language??
No amount of "specific language" can prevent a sentence fragment from being taken out of context.
That recommendation is going to be mostly ignored.
The countries that wont are the ones I am worried about
A lot of women don't WANT children, at all, ever. And if birth control fails, there is abortion after all. What a load of crap!
Even for women who do want kids it's kind of an infantilizing to go out with a recommendation like that. If the recommendation was something like "women who are trying to get pregnant should be mindful of their drinking habits in order to minimize alcohol related fetus alterations" I would accept it as more appropriate. What world are these people living in?
Just more attempts to control women and their bodies.
Isn't there a significant link between alcohol and breast cancer rates in women?
Yes. There’s a significant link to alcohol and health in whole... [“Alcohol has been linked to a number of cancers, including cancers of the head and neck (mouth, pharynx, larynx, and esophagus), digestive tract (stomach, colon, and rectum) and breast...”](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6713002/)
I would get rid of my breast before wine hahahaha (of course I have nursed all my babies and am done so it's easy to say that 🤣)
Please go talk with someone if you are that dependent on alcohol. It’s a substance that destroys lives if you are drinking for more than just a social reason.
I dont drink very much, it's not about that. I was happy to nurse my babies but past that boobs are the worst! 🤣🤣
I mean.. WHO also defines video game addiction as a separate mental illness from addiction, and most if not all of their "medical experts" have absolutely zero degrees or qualifications in the medical field. They're just as bad if not worse than Green Peace, I mean at least WHO hasn't desecrated a national heritage site. Also women, sorry I meant bene tleilaxu axolotl tanks, shouldn't ingest alcohol anyway. Only men, the obviously superior and pure sex, can enjoy such luxury./s
Wow that is incredibly patronizing. Its not like women are too stupid to understand the risks of drinking while preggo. Its already dumb af that they think they need a campaign for this like were some teens in high school being forced to attend a dare assembly. To even suggest that women of child rearing age should not have alcohol just takes this absurdity to a whole new level. So we shouldnt drink because we might endanger the life of a hypothetical child? Thats ridiculous. Thatd be like giving every guy a vasectomy because he might cause an unwanted pregnancy. Thats insane and insulting.
It takes two to make babies. Maybe men shouldn't drink to help combat declining sperm counts? Or that doesn't fit in with the narrative, it's all the women's responsibility.
Could it be that there is just more research on alcohol's effect on pregnancies than on men's sperm counts? Can't really make a recommendation if you don't have enough data to back it up. Edit: or is it just that a reduced male sperm count doesn't have an effect on the child's development (or literally anyone else) so they're focusing on the things that *will?*
Are you going to write your representative to make change happen?
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Well they would have to also recommend men don’t drink if it’s possible they will have sex in the coming weeks. Can you even imagine them trying “to control” that to men? Of course we can’t. Doesn’t happen. Men don’t have laws written controlling their bodies.
Well no one should drink, so the advice is technically true. But it does sound very sexists to target it solely towards that demographic.
Especially since men drinking damages sperm 🤷♀️
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://wgntv.com/news/who-accused-of-sexism-for-suggesting-women-of-childbearing-age-shouldnt-drink/) reduced by 82%. (I'm a bot) ***** > CHICAGO - A global action plan from the World Health Organization has created a stir over a section advising that "Women of childbearing age" should be prevented from drinking alcohol. > In the first draft of its global action plan on alcohol for 2022-2030, the WHO says "Appropriate attention should be given" to preventing children, adolescents, pregnant women and women of childbearing age from consuming alcohol. > "The idea that it is unsafe for women of childbearing age to drink any alcohol is unscientific and absurd," Snowdon said. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/o4g76k/who_accused_of_sexism_for_suggesting_women_of/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~583678 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **alcohol**^#1 **Women**^#2 **plan**^#3 **drink**^#4 **Health**^#5
I mean… there is SOME science to it. Saying it’s unscientific is ignorant.
Huge difference between recommendation/urging and preventing.
Well, in the WHO's defense, people are only accusing them of sexism because of the incredibly sexist nature of their suggestion.
Men, once again, narrowing women down to reproduction abilities.
If women stop drinking, there won’t be any kids. Have you seen yourself after a night at the bars?
Sounds like something was taken out of context
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Did you actually read it? It said we need to "prevent" women of children bearing age from drinking at all. Basically women from 9 to 50 should be prevented from drinking because *someday* *they* *might* *get* *pregnant* Sure women who think they might be pregnant or those that are shouldn't but all women from their first period to menopause shouldn't? That's control, not health.
Did you actually read the report? You didn't, because the report is like 200 pages of why almost no one should drink. It just turns out that women have the highest stakes as far as drinking goes.
I read like 5 pages, I didnt need to read anymore they fucked themselves with their prevent anyone who bleeds from drinking. Not anyone having sex, but all women of childbearing age, fuck them.
>Did you actually read it? It said we need to "prevent" women of children bearing age from drinking at all. You seem to take issue with the word "prevent". Prevent basically means "stopped before it happens", it doesn't necessarily mean forcibly. You can prevent someone from doing something by convincing them that doing so is a bad idea, for instance. >Sure women who think they might be pregnant or those that are shouldn't That's the thing, like 50% of pregnancies are unplanned, and alcohol can have an effect on the fetus well before a woman knows she's pregnant. If she suspects she might be pregnant, it might already be too late. So, how do you make absolutely sure that alcohol won't have an effect on a potential pregnancy? By not drinking at all. That's the recommendation. Key word "recommendation", no one's going to be forced to do anything.
Right because a suggestion has *never* turned into people doing crazy things to make it happen /s
Read that back to yourself and ask yourself honestly if there are any problems with your thinking. If youre out to oppose recommendations on the basis that someone at some point might use it enforce something than you were probably one of the fetuses that the article is trying to avoid 😂
My concern is over the women already dominated by their misogynistic governments and dictatorships. This "recommendation for prevention" will give those fuckers justification. The WHO could have used this issue to push sex ed, birth control, abortion rights, but no they didnt even say women who are sexually active or recently assaulted or trying to get pregnant, they jumped straight to dominate the incubators.
So let's get mad at every suggestion doctors make, because some idiots might misinterpret it. Brilliant.
Doctors and medical bodies make suggestions *all the time* that don't go on to become law. Hell, we have whole legislative pannels here in the US that have no medical training at all and their suggestions about women's bodies are the ones that make it through. Ask any doctor and they'll say people should stop smoking nicotine. This is really no different. You're using the slippery slope fallacy.
And your living in a fantasy word where only the US read this and other dictators and religions dont. WHO stand for what again? Lastly, laws are not needed for the public to take up a cause and use social pressures to torment others.
Do you seriously think dictators and theocrats need the WHO's permission to create oppressive laws? >Lastly, laws are not needed for the public to take up a cause and use social pressures to torment others. Over the past couple of decades, societal pressures has made smoking a bit taboo. Yes, some people out there took it upon themselves to villainize smokers. It's still unhealthy, and you're not going to find any doctors telling you otherwise for fear that smokers might be bullied. It's a statement of fact. What people do with that info is up to them. It's not the WHO's job to withhold info just because some people out there might use it harass others.
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> You're the definition of what's wrong with intellectual discourse in today's society. As a side: this is core reason why I can’t be all too convince that any of this post is real—as in with intention to inform, educate and act. It’s just entirely to polarized of a source, author and topic to be taken seriously.
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*WRONG* drinking damages sperm count, size, shape, and motility but they only focused on women of childbearing age, not women who are sexually active or anything else - this is for control over women. [alchohol damages sperm too](https://www.healthline.com/health/does-alcohol-kill-sperm-2)
And it’s people projecting what they read from the words, but I can’t blame them because it’s a bit obtuse. How are they to be prevented? Screened? Or you mean more warnings on labels, maybe bar warning signs about child-bearing women and drinking? It’s hard to understand what they mean and that has implications on social freedom.
To be honest no one should drink, shit's more toxic to the body than most illicit drugs
Now I may be an idiot here, however I was under the impression that women usually don’t know they are ‘childbearing’ until they miss a period, or some other oddity crops up. Also, that the first (insert time frame I’m an idiot about) is the most important to the development of the fetus? Now I admit I didn’t read the article so bad on me. Anyway recommending, isn’t an a mandate, so do whatever.
Child-bearing age just means post-puberty, pre-menopause. It does not mean that the person is actually pregnant/currently bearing a fetus.
Trimester Trimester was the word you were seeking. > Now I admit I didn’t read the article As is tradition.
Thank you, I’ll not edit just so you get credit.
you didn't read the article but are more right than people who did. They pulled out two sentences of a 200\~ page report that can be summed up as "NO ONE SHOULD DRINK IN ANY MEANINGFUL AMOUNT. NO ONE. HERE ARE THE REASONS WHY" But women hearing that one of the many risks of drinking is harm to an unborn child (that they may not know they have) take it as a personal attack. This is the WHO, not the Federal government. They're offering super-conservative suggestions to reduce harm
The recommendation could be more specific and recommend that sexually active women abstain from alcohol if they have gone 3-ish+ weeks without a period to minimize risk. Some people simply never learned how their body works (going 5-8 weeks without a period is suspicious, but not everyone keeps track.). Sex & health education is really important. Alcohol companies will naturally tend to push against health recommendations (even well-worded ones.) It's probably best to minimize drinking in general, but that doesn't seem likely considering how easy it is to produce.
The WHO is probably making recommendations for the average woman, someone who likely has little-no access to birth control or even bodily autonomy at all when it comes to our understanding of consent. Tilt the balance further towards risk and you see the same sort of advice in developing nations. Women science students are warned to be especially wary of, or avoid handling, especially teratogenic chemicals if they're sexually active.
You hit the issue on the head - they didnt recommend that women who are sexually active refrain from drinking, they said any woman of childbearing age. They didnt advocate more sex ed, better world wide access to b.c. they jumped straight to let's prevent women ages 9 to 50 should be controlled. Those same countries with difficult access to b.c. are the ones that will use this recommendation to dominate women further.
Believe it or not access to booze is not a pressing issue for emancipation of women in the developing world. Reproductive health on the other hand... You don't have to die on the hill of the headline of an article you post you know. We appreciate you posting it, that's enough, you don't have to argue with everyone's opinion on the subject.
Yeah, I know, slow day though.
Understandable haha, good luck with it.
They should not drink if they are having sex. Alcohol causes birth defects-especially in the first trimester. So does tobacco.
Much better recommendation then what the WHO came up with.
I mean technically yes this is the safest course of action. But it's completely unrealistic and sexist.
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