New data released Thursday suggests the prevalence of drinking during pregnancy has increased in recent years.
Approximately 15% of pregnant adults reported current alcohol use (drinking in the past 30 days) between 2021 and 2024, according to national survey data published in a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 13.5% of women reported similar drinking between 2018 and 2020.
The numbers, while lagging behind current trends, are indicative of an ongoing health problem that experts say has received little attention because drinking during pregnancy is generally considered a thing of the past.
“Alcohol consumption during pregnancy remains a public health concern. Both clinical and community interventions may be helpful,” the report authors wrote.
Pregnant women who were unmarried or who experienced frequent “psychological distress” were more than twice as likely to report binge drinking or heavy drinking than those without these characteristics, the study said. Binge drinking is defined for women as drinking four or more drinks within a two-hour period. Drinking four or more drinks on a given day is classified as heavy drinking.
STAT Plus: One in eight women drinks alcohol during pregnancy. Experts are concerned about the consequences
A recent STAT report on the harms of alcohol use in the United States examined changing attitudes toward drinking during pregnancy, with some health care professionals taking a more lenient view of alcohol use. The report also revealed that women’s alcohol use, even when problematic, is more often ignored than that of men. Interventions during pregnancy are particularly rare.
Research suggests that health care providers are often hesitant to refer pregnant patients for substance use disorder treatment or prescribe medications to help them reduce alcohol consumption. At least part of the reason is due to the fact that pregnant women are excluded from clinical trials by default.
Alcohol use during pregnancy is a major concern as ethanol is known to cause birth defects. It can affect nearly every stage of fetal development and is the leading cause of intellectual disability in the United States. Federal estimates suggest that fetal alcohol spectrum disorders may be more common than autism.
All major guidelines on this issue state that it is not proven what amount of alcohol is safe for a developing fetus. Therefore, women are advised to refrain from drinking any alcohol during pregnancy. The CDC also recommends that people who may become pregnant or are trying to become pregnant stop drinking alcohol.
A STAT analysis of raw data from the CDC last month showed that alcohol use during pregnancy will decline slightly in 2024 for the first time in years. The CDC’s estimates did not report this single-year change by lumping together data from several years. It is not yet clear whether the decline in 2024 is a temporary change or a sustained trend line.
Alcohol use across the U.S. population soared during the coronavirus pandemic, but has declined by some measure in recent years. However, alcohol-related harms have hardly returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The new CDC data must be understood in context. People generally tend to underestimate their drinking, which can skew the findings in one direction, but some of the women surveyed may have been drinking before they knew they were pregnant. The study did not ask women which trimester of pregnancy they were in.
The authors of the CDC report write that regularly testing alcohol intake and mental health during pregnancy may help reduce alcohol consumption. The same applies to “warning signs in stores and alcohol consumption tax.”
STAT Plus: Despite its toll, alcohol remains an awkward topic in the doctor’s office.
The United States has been slower than other countries in implementing policies that could reduce drinking rates. Attempts to raise alcohol taxes at the state level are frequently blocked. Additionally, although alcohol screening is common in primary care, its depth and quality often vary widely. Studies have found that the majority of problem drinkers do not receive counseling or other interventions from a health care provider.
The STAT report also found that Trump officials were obstructing tracking of alcohol consumption during and after pregnancy. Several researchers using the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) say they have not received updates on the tool for months. The system has been left in limbo due to reductions in the CDC staff that was running it.
The Department of Health and Human Services has not published updated data beyond 2023, including some measures of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and the postpartum period. The federal PRAMS website advises researchers to contact each state if they want to collect data.
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