Am I Nuts Thinking of Drinking Booze During Pregnancy???

Okay, so here is the just of it...

I am dealing with some issues of anxiety/depression. The "why" list is so long I have not been posting lately because I just feel too crappy to bother...

I started see a psychiatrist who wants to put me on meds. In fact, I have the prescription filled in my bathroom right now. I have yet to take one pill though.

The basics of the drug are a calming effect. Not unlike Alcohol... They are in the same family as 'vallium'.

But here are the pregnancy side effects:

Pregnancy and breast feeding – Lorazepam belongs to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pregnancy category D, which means that it is likely to cause harm to the developing baby, if taken during the first trimester of pregnancy. There is inconclusive evidence that lorazepam, if taken early in pregnancy, may result in reduced IQ, neurodevelopmental problems, physical malformations in cardiac or facial structure, or other malformations in some newborns. Lorazepam given to pregnant women antenatally may cause floppy infant syndrome[53] in the neonate, or respiratory depression necessitating ventilation. Regular lorazepam use during late pregnancy (the third trimester), carries a definite risk of benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome in the neonate. Neonatal benzodiazepine withdrawal may include hypotonia, reluctance to suck, apneic spells, cyanosis, and impaired metabolic responses to cold stress. Symptoms of floppy infant syndrome and the neonatal benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome have been reported to persist from hours to months after birth.[54] Lorazepam may also inhibit foetal liver bilirubin glucuronidation, leading to neonatal jaundice. Lorazepam is present in breast milk, so caution must be exercised about breast feeding.

The above pertains to the baby...
Now to me:

Suicidality: Benzodiazepines may sometimes unmask suicidal ideation in depressed patients, possibly through disinhibition or fear reduction. The concern is that, though relatively nontoxic in themselves[verification needed], benzodiazepines may inadvertently become facilitators of suicidal behaviour.[49] Lorazepam should, therefore, not be prescribed in high doses or as the sole treatment in depression, but only with an appropriate antidepressant[specify].
Amnesic effects: Among benzodiazepines, lorazepam has relatively strong amnesic effects,[5][50] but patients soon develop tolerance to this with regular use. To avoid amnesia (or excess sedation) being a problem, the initial total daily lorazepam dose should not exceed 2 mg. This also applies to use for night sedation. Five participants in a sleep study were prescribed lorazepam 4 mg at night, and the next evening three subjects unexpectedly volunteered memory gaps for parts of that day, an effect that subsided completely after 2–3 days' use.[51] Amnesic effects cannot be estimated from the degree of sedation present, since the two effects are unrelated.


Above are only two of a very long list..Now, being that some of the issues I am having are 'suicidal thoughts' (embarassing admition), this sounds somewhat risky.



That being said- I have been on the drug before while not pregnant, and not nearly as low....and I would compare it to having an alcoholic drink......


Now, if I were to substitue alcohol for the few times where the pressure gets to be too much (where I can't sleep what so ever, or am losing my mind)... There are a lot of people who would be totally up in arms... I am not talking about binge drinking. I am talking about a 1/2 oz shot to calm the nerves like my Baba, her Baba, and her Baba's Baba would have done in the old country.

There are a lot of people who would be totally up in arms...

But then I read articles like this:


Drinking a little alcohol during pregnancy is just fine for most women, found a new study.

In fact, pregnant moms who are able to kick back and relax a little may even give their children a developmental leg up, at least for the first five years of life, which is how far the study tracked kids.

"Heavy binge drinking has been linked for a long time with difficulties for mothers and the children born to them," said lead researcher Yvonne Kelly, an epidemiologist at University College London.

"There hasn't been rigorous research to look at the lower end of the drinking spectrum," she added. "Regardless of the emotive issues, we wanted to look at the science."

The study, which found no evidence of harm from having a couple drinks a week during pregnancy, was so well done and its findings so conclusive that it ought to become the final word in the field, said Fred Bookstein, an applied statistician who studies fetal alcohol spectrum disorders at both the University of Washington, Seattle, and the University of Vienna.

"This is such a good study that it should shut down this line of research," said Boostein, who plans to refer people to the paper when they ask him about drinking during pregnancy, and hopes that research dollars can now go towards finding the effects of other, more troublesome chemicals.

"It is no longer valid to argue that we don't know enough about low-dose drinking during pregnancy or that the known effects of binge drinking may penetrate to low-dose drinkers somehow," he added. "There is no detectable risk associated with light or moderate drinking during pregnancy."

In the United Kingdom, where Kelly and colleagues work, mothers tend to have a relatively relaxed attitude toward alcohol during pregnancy. About a third of pregnant women report drinking at least some alcohol, Kelly said, offering a natural experiment to look at how levels of drinking affect children later on.

The researchers tapped into a long-term study that has followed more than 18,500 children since birth between 2000 and 2002.

When the babies were about 9 months old, moms were asked to describe how much alcohol they had consumed during pregnancy. Then, the babies took a series of tests that evaluated their behavioral, emotional and intellectual development. The kids took similar tests at age three and again at age five.

The scientist grouped the mothers by alcohol consumption. One group, called teetotalers, never drank, even when they weren't pregnant. Another group stopped during pregnancy but resumed drinking after having their babies. Light drinkers had no more than one or two drinks a week while pregnant. Moderate pregnant drinkers had up to 6 drinks per week or 5 drinks at once. Heavy binge drinkers consumed more than that.

A drink was defined as a small glass of wine, a half-pint of beer or a single serving of hard alcohol.

Final results of the study, published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, agreed with previous work that children born to heavy binge drinkers do worst on developmental tests, because excessive exposure to alcohol in the womb kills nerve cells and causes brain damage.

The kids of teetotalers did almost as poorly, however, reflecting the complicated phenomenon that people who never drink have poor outcomes on many measures of health.

But the study found no evidence that light drinking during pregnancy causes emotional or learning problems in children through the age of five. In some tests of vocabulary and pattern creation, boys actually did best if their moms drank a little while carrying them. The findings confirmed what the researchers had found when the kids were three years old.

The results don't mean that alcohol is good for a developing fetus, Bookstein said. Rather, there's something about women who decide to cut down on alcohol while pregnant that also produces favorable results in their children, even if they don't cut out alcohol completely. They may be more medically informed, for example, which might also lead them to ask their doctors for advice, take vitamins and follow health news.

Drinking just a little could also help pregnant women relax, Kelly said. Plenty of recent studies have pointed out the risk of maternal stress to fetal development. A relaxed parenting style could be beneficial, too. But she stopped short of offering advice.

"It would be reckless to tell people to start doing something when there are all sorts of reasons why people wouldn't want to drink and shouldn't drink alcohol during pregnancy," she said. "At least the science is showing there isn't any increased risk of difficulties (with light drinking). That is the most sensible and cautious line."

Bookstein was more forthcoming. His group in Seattle, he said, has never seen a case of damage to a child whose mother drank during pregnancy, unless she binged. He defined a binge as five or more drinks in one sitting, four or more drinks several times a month, or drinking to the point of intoxication more than once.

"I tell my daughters not to worry about a drink a day, but don't ever get drunk and be aware that after the second drink, you're not going to be able to count," Bookstein said. "There's just no evidence that a drink a day is causing any damage."




So I am curious to read what others would think.... Trust the Big Drug Companies we all know are as corrupt as can be.... or the booze made from fermented grapes, or grains or from potatoes....