New data released Thursday suggest the prevalence of drinking during pregnancy increased in recent years.
National survey data published in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report show about 15% of adult pregnant women reported current drinking (use in the prior 30 days) between 2021 and 2024. About 13.5% of women reported the same between 2018 and 2020.
The numbers, while lagging behind current trends, point to an ongoing health issue, which experts say gets too little attention because drinking during pregnancy is generally thought of as a thing of the past.
“Alcohol consumption during pregnancy remains a public health concern. Both clinical and community interventions might help,” the report’s authors wrote.
Pregnant women who were unmarried or who experienced frequent “mental distress” were more than twice as likely to report binge drinking and heavy drinking compared to peers without those characteristics, the study says. Binge drinking is defined for women as having four or more drinks in a span of two hours. Having four or more drinks on any given day is classified as heavy drinking.
