This opinion piece was published by The Mercury on Thursday 16 July 2020.
I am a mother of three healthy young children and I am grateful every day for their good health.
As soon as I found out I was pregnant I, like many other women before me completely stopped drinking alcohol because I had heard the messages that drinking while pregnant could harm my unborn babies.
But while I made this decision, I knew of others who chose to drink the occasional glass on a special occasion, and I knew of one who still chose to drink regularly throughout their pregnancy.
To be honest, I didn’t think much of this at the time and on reflection I think it’s because when I was pregnant with my children, there really wasn’t any strong messages being aimed at me to reinforce the message that drinking while pregnant was dangerous.
Sure, there was word-of-mouth and the warning from my doctor when they confirmed I was pregnant, but I have to say that there was definitely a perception that it was a personal choice, and that it was indeed ‘ok’ to have the occasional drink while pregnant.
Throw into the mix the different health guidelines of other countries, and stories of ‘my mother drank while she was pregnant and I turned out OK’, it makes sense to me why a decision not to drink while pregnant could be seen as more of a personal health choice.
But this needs to change.
It needs to change because there’s so much more I know now that I wish I knew when I was pregnant.
While I chose not to drink, I didn’t know that even drinking a very small amount of alcohol just once simply at the wrong time could cause harm to an unborn child.
I didn’t know that drinking when ‘trying’ to get pregnant had the potential to harm my unborn children.
I didn’t know that drinking while pregnant increased the risk of miscarriage.
I hadn’t even heard about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder which is a condition caused by drinking while pregnant that has life-long consequences for a child’s learning and physical abilities.
It is estimated that across the world there are almost 120,000 children born with FASD every year.
I’m writing about this today, because tomorrow a decision will be made to progress a seemingly small, but incredibly important change in how we make the messaging stronger about the risks of drinking while pregnant.
Tomorrow, ministers from across Australia and New Zealand responsible for food safety regulation are going to be meeting and making a decision about pregnancy health warning labels on alcohol products.
Their discussions are not going to be about whether a warning should be there because, after more than a decade of push back from the alcohol industry, that decision has thankfully already been made.
Tomorrow’s decision is going to be focused on what the warning label should look like and the alcohol industry is fighting very hard to water down what it looks like and the words they have to use.
I’ve had the opportunity to see the prototype warning label that has been recommended by the food and safety regulators.
It’s clearly a warning label that uses the colours red, black and white.
I’ve also seen the alcohol industry’s preferred version and on some alcohol bottles the warning will literally be see-through and might as well be invisible.
It’s my understanding the alcohol industry is pushing back against the ‘warning’ label because they’re worried about cost, and wanting the option to make the presentation of the warning better suit their branding.
Knowing what we know now, and as someone who can see the obvious gaps in information provided to community about drinking while pregnant, this reasoning falls significantly short of what we should expect as a community.
Alcohol does, and will continue to play an important part in Australian culture, and the alcohol industry needs to accept responsibility for the harm its products can cause.
Tomorrow when Minister Jeremy Rockliff votes on behalf of Tasmania, I am hoping that he will hear the messages and stories of individuals like myself, and put the health of our community first and foremost ahead of industry interests and support an effective pregnancy health warning label.
It may seem like a small change, but it will have big impact and quite simply a warning is only a warning when you can actually see it.
Alison Lai is the chief executive of the Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs Council of Tasmania.
This opinion piece was published by The Mercury on Thursday 16 July 2020.
