Drinking Wine While Pregnant

Forget the Real Housewives -- comparing differences between American and French culture is real entertainment. Wine drinking during pregnancy is one of the more hot-button issues with legions of cultural polarization.

The stakes are high; no one wants to subject their baby to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), the mental and physical complications that arise when a fetus is exposed to alcohol. But how can it be that French women avoid these complications without abstaining?

To begin with, wine is heavily integrated into dining culture in France. Wine has been produced in France since at least the 6th century, over 1000 years before the Mayflower delivered passengers to America. Walk the streets of Paris and nary will you find a bistro table without a glass or bottle of vin rouge.

Wine also has a place on the French family dining table and young people are introduced to it earlier. Little Pierre may have a sip of wine at dinner but poor Peter better not even eyeball the stuff. Consider the puritanical baggage with which American children are raised and its no wonder so many hit the ground running in college.

In the United States, sobering up during pregnancy has only been advised for the last 40 years. Who could forget those scenes in Mad Men with pregnant characters drinking and smoking heavily? In the 1970s research linked birth defects and growth problems with alcoholic mothers, and in 1988 Congress passed legislation requiring all alcoholic beverage containers to carry warnings of potential birth defects.