Intake of up to 14 drinks per week does not affect fertility

New results from SnartForaeldre.dk show that women do not become pregnant faster by not drinking alcohol. If a woman consumes less than 14 standard drinks of beer or wine per week she has the same likelihood of becoming pregnant as a woman drinking no alcohol. The Danish Health and Medicines Authority recommends that women who are trying to conceive do not drink alcohol, just in case. Senior researcher Ellen M. Mikkelsen stresses that the results do not encourage women to drink a lot of alcohol: ”A foetus is vulnerable to the effects of alcohol in the first weeks after conception, so from the time of ovulation until a pregnancy has been ruled out, it is sensible not to drink alcohol. However, the study shows that it is not necessary to totally abstain from drinking alcohol”, Ellen M. Mikkelsen says. The study on alcohol and fertility is based on 6120 Danish women enrolled in SnartForaeldre.dk (Soon Parents), which is carried out by researchers from Department of Clinical Epidemiology in collaboration with colleagues from Boston University. The results are published in the BMJ today in the paper ”Alcohol consumption and fecundability: A prospective Danish cohort study”. Besides, the results have been mentioned by The New York Times in the US and The Sun in Great Britain.