Giving up alcohol was easy for South Australian mother-of-two Carly Keene.
“You want to do everything you can to prevent harm to your unborn child,” Keene said.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: SA government campaigns to stop mums-to-be drinking during pregnancy.
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“As soon as my husband and I started trying, I stopped drinking alcohol.
“I was seeing my GP and so I did let her know that my husband and I were trying to get pregnant, so she just said, if I can stop drinking alcohol (that would be best).
“Obviously we don’t want the unborn child to consume alcohol.”
However, Keene said there were plenty who tried to tempt her with a tipple.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there around alcohol, pregnancy and breastfeeding, many people telling me it’s OK to have a drink,” Keene said.
“Especially my neighbours who are in their 80s (and) said, ‘I drank all throughout my pregnancy, and my children are OK’.
“I get that message a lot out in the community.”
SA Health Minister Chris Picton said there was still work to do to get the message out to the community.
“We need to get the message through, as much as possible, that there’s no safe amount of alcohol,” Picton said.
“We have seen improvements in decades with this, and the message has been getting through, but not quite enough.
“There are some people who think just a little bit is fine, but all the research shows that that’s not the case.
“This can be an incredibly difficult disease and can have lifelong impacts for a baby.
“To have that impact, from those decisions, no mother, no family, would want that for their child,” he said.
To educate more families about the risk of any alcohol on their baby, the government is investing almost $500,000 to keep a national ad campaign going.
“We spend a lot of time and a lot of money, focusing on the other end of the system, on our hospitals, on our ambulance service, much more expensive end of the system,” Picton said.
“We want to focus on how we can prevent those diseases from happening in the first place.
“It’s one thing to have services to support people, and services where we’re trying to prevent people from being impacted in the first place — but to make sure that when people are impacted, that we’ve got pathways and help for them to be rehabilitated (is another thing).
“A key part of that has been investing in additional rehabilitation spaces.
“The money that we’re spending on campaigns like this ultimately pays huge dividends in terms of the lifelong impact on our health system and society.”
Clearing up mixed messages
There are “so many mixed messages out there” about drinking during pregnancy and the campaign aims to clear them up, Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education CEO Caterina Giorgi said.
“We now have really clear guidelines from the national health and medical research council, that advise health professionals to speak about alcohol during pregnancy and to say that it’s best to avoid all alcohol,” Giorgi said.
“We know that alcohol use during pregnancy, can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and that’s a lifelong condition that has so many impacts on children as they develop.
“All segments of the community including people who you might not think, like women who are higher in socio-economic status, are receiving messages from their community, telling them it’s OK to have a drink or two.
“A lot of people across the community are impacted by alcohol, whether it be alcohol use disorders, hospitalisations, liver disease, people are impacted by violence, there are so many negative impacts of alcohol across the community.
“A lot of people aren’t aware, that the harm from alcohol, is greater, than the harm from all illicit drugs combined.”
After seeing the national ad campaign, the number of women who didn’t drink while trying to become pregnant rose from about 30 per cent to almost 60 per cent.
The government has also released its new draft strategy for reducing drug and alcohol related harm in the community and is seeking community feedback.
Disrupting supply and prevention programs are among the priorities.