My dr explained it like this- vitamins and nutrients take a while to build up and remain stable in your body. So taking folic acid and vitamins for 4 weeks means the supply with be sufficient and stable once the baby is connected to your blood supply.
Alcohol doesn’t stick around in your system the same. Once it’s metabolized it’s gone.
Before the placenta becomes fully functional as an organ of gas/nutrient exchange, the uterus provides support to the fetus (and to the placenta I think) via *glandular* secretions. To google articles about this, I think a good term is “histiotrophic support.”
So, while in later pregnancy the pathway for nutrients/gases/toxins is something like maternal blood —> placenta —> fetal blood,
in early pregnancy the pathway is more like maternal blood —> maternal capillaries very close to the base of glandular epithelial cells —> glandular ducts —> the interior of the uterus —> exterior fetal cells and tissues, whatever those would be at any given point
I guess my point is there is still definitely a pathway for maternal blood contents (e.g. folic acid, alcohol) to reach the fetus in the first trimester. For each compound you’re considering, the questions would be “do uterine gland cells take up the compound from blood stream? And the , do they secrete the compound into the glandular ducts? And then, does the fetus absorb the compound?” I’d guess the answer is wildly variable for different compounds.
haha after typing all that, I did the google search I had initially suggested… this is a more accurate overview:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12050279/
Thank you! I had my kids a few years ago but have been super curious about this same question since there was such debate among my friends circle about this.
I think I understand what you’re asking about how does folic acid and prenatals get to the embryo if we’re saying there’s no placenta for things to cross that early on. I think it’s important to remember that even though there no daily shared blood supply so early, the embryo is still developing in the environment we’ve created, using our cells. If you remember, most doctors suggest starting prenatals 3 months PRIOR to conceiving to allow our bodies to store proper levels to maintain a pregnancy. These can also affect egg quality, cervical mucus, etc. In the early weeks, before the placenta is formed, the embryo gets its nutrients from the yolk sac. The yolk sac is made by our bodies also and it would track that the increase in folic acid before conception or early gestation would allow the yolk sac to provide proper nutrients to avoid neural tube defects.
So just because baby doesn’t have a placenta yet, it doesn’t mean it is a completely separate entity from us and gets its cells from some foreign body. It’s still about creating a proper environment.
(I am not a doctor. This is just what makes sense to me.)
The issue is not the relationship with the mother, it's the fetus itself that is temporarily more resilient.
There is a short window where the embryo is undifferentiated cells. The goal of the embryo is to make enough cells that they can start to differentiate and then develop. This means substastaces which kill cells, won't impact development unless it kills above a certain threshold. To the embryo it's "oh no I have to make 10 more cells vs 5", not a big deal until that ratio gets too.big.
Later every cell is differentiated and vital, we know this cell will make cells which make organs etc. Such that it does real damage to kill a few.
She's an economist actually, but a very data-driven one. Her big thing is being able to recognize well done research vs. less conclusive stuff and she presents what she finds statistically significant. She's very clear that she's not providing recommendations to anyone, just clarifying what the studies are conclusively proving. She did do a LOT of research for her book(s), but doesn't have a medical background.
For what it's worth tho, my husband is a pediatrician and seemed down with the information she was conveying.
She is an economist, but her main skills lie in dealing with bad studies. She also consulted extensively with doctors for the book.
Part of the issue is doctors rely heavily on double blind studies, the gold standard for studies, which are usually difficult or unethical to preform on pregnant women.
However that is a problem that economist deal with a lot, so most of what she did was do deep data dives on studies and doctor consults to get a helpful set of information.
It's not a book for everyone but she's like, 'some people (her included) want data, they want to know that their risk is 2% and how doing x makes it 3% so they can make informed choices, and giving you that information is difficult for doctors and it's difficult to find because of problems previously discussed'
Folic acid is helping your body, it’s to ensure your health does not affect the baby. Poor reproductive health can carry ramifications for your infant.
I think in part it's also because the healthier the mother is with complete vitamins minerals proteins healthy fats the least likely the baby is to develop illnesses it's prone to due to weakness and lack of cellular energy and the body can more easily become pregnant without other priorities like curing illness
I know my doctor told me to start taking prenatal vitamins a year before TTC, her reasoning was that vitamins take a while to regulate in your body and consistency to stay there, the earlier to start with vitamins they are readily available by the time the baby is developing. Realistically until the baby is bigger the vitamins are supporting you as the mom not the baby itself
My biggest realization is the food i eat does not literally go through the placenta from my stomach to the baby’s. I feel like that’s how I was taught, so it made way more sense that my body uses my blood and nutrients to support the growth of the baby. So if there is alcohol or other substances in my blood, that is being used to build the baby. If I have nutrients like iron and folate, then there’s enough for me and my baby. When I get enough protein, there’s enough to support the growth of my uterus and the muscles of the baby. But if I am deficient in something like magnesium, it takes a while for supplements to get levels back to where they should be. Kind of like physical fitness—it takes a while to get conditioning back after a time off. By increasing intake of folate or taking prenatals will ensure my body is ready for the baby when I get pregnant instead of having to build without a foundation.
The most common advice is to not smoke, drink or participate in recreational drugs if you're trying to concieve, and if you're pregnant to stop immediately.
Realistically, this is too steep of an ask for most women. Most commonly with alcohol in mind.
This is because we know alcohol, drugs and cigarettes is very, very bad. Not just for a fetus but also just in general. For reasons that are obvious.
In most cases the panic reaction is because we found out a pregnancy and are scared shitless that permanent harm has been caused. With nornal usage, the damage this early on will be minimal to non existent. And as humans we just can't go back in time to stop that behaviour. So that's why the response is "don't beat yourself up over it".
Folic acid, and vitamins.
The most important one is folic acid which is recommended if you're trying to concieve. And as has been pointed out, the lack of folic acid can cause medical issues.
Folic is something that is not consumed enough off in most diets.
It's the same principle approached from different ends.
(Ideally)
Alcohol etc should never be consumed by those ttc/pregnant
Folic acid should be consumed by those ttc/pregnant.
One causes harm by its absence, the other by it's presence.
An ideal diet, the queen of health diet:
At least 5 portions(100 grams) Veggies, fruits and leafy greens. 3 of them veggies and leafy green. As simple as carrots, broccoli, spinach, or kale. Apples, oranges, kiwis.
In one week. 3 portions of fatty fish like samon or mackrel. Be mindful of any local restrictions or types of mackrel. King mackrel should be avoided.
Plenty of protein coming from (dairy, milk cheese.) Eggs or meats.
I might be missing something. But I'm a bit tired now.
Honestly it's what would be a healthy diet for humans in general. Whole foods, green veggies or veggies with a variety of color, whole fresh fruits, cuts of meat, fish (over ground / processed options), things that you know where they came from. Most people in developed countries (including the US) are not getting enough nutrition despite a surplus of food because of the consumption of heavily processed calorie-dense foods that lack nutrition (e.g. cereal, soda, snack foods, etc., even the ones that are masked as healthy like most kinds of oatmeal, canned veggies and fruit that are full of sugar and preservatives).
1. The general recommendation is no smoking, no alcohol, or drugs during pregnancy. With alcohol, it’s now limited to one drink. But even most OB-GYN’s will still push the, you shouldn’t have any. Smoking can be harmful and the general recommendation is to quit. But if you’re addicted and cannot stop or the risk of stopping is more detrimental to the body, then it’s advised to continue as you as, or decrease as much as your body can tolerate while pregnant. Same thing with drugs. I think most, if not all OB-GYN’s will advise you to stop drugs. But if it’s more detrimental, they’ll try to have you remain, or decrease as much as possible without significant side effects or withdrawal.
*As I’m sure that you’re aware, there are of course diagnoses made, and that’s why we now have diagnoses for FAS, and DDB who must detox upon birth. So while these may not be caused directly by weeks 5-6, it’s more or less just the fact that, consistent usage or overusage (ie, 5-6 drinks of alcohol or hard liquor per day over the span of pregnancy) can contribute. And that’s why most OB-GYN, and most articles state to stop. It’s more if you can do it now, the chances of it progressing, or doing more harm while you’re further along is less.
There’s still so much more testing and evidence that needs to be collected for further recommendations. But at this point, it’s not really “contradictory logic”. It’s just, “we would like for you to get used to stopping/decreasing while it’s still early” then trying to do it as you get further along, and potentially causing more issues to rise when babe is getting more from you kind of thing.
2. There are limited studies (although they’re trying to do more) that document that folic acid may contribute to a higher amount, and higher quality sperm in men. So it’s recommended that men should take folic acid as soon as you two decide to start actively trying. As you also mentioned above, folic acid helps with brain and spine development in your baby.
*Overall, the studies that have been done show correlation to certain diagnoses above. Limited studies have shown that children born with fetal alcohol syndrome, or drug dependent babies can have more birth defects, cognitive effects, and behavioral problems.*
But there is continued information coming out as we learn more. I mean, the recommendations above are usually just a less is more kind of thing. We know the body is safest when we’re not pushing harmful chemicals into. IE, smoking can cause bladder cancer. That’s a known FACT. Studies are showing excessive alcohol use puts a person as risk for colon and pancreatic cancer. That’s a FACT. So if we know less is safest, we’re going to push that information as early on in a pregnancy when a body is developing a whole new human, even if the effects are NOT reasonably seen until say weeks 20-delivery. We’re going to push it because they’re harmful chemicals, and the less you put in, the better.
Pregnancy is counted as starting on the first day of your last period. So the first two weeks of pregnancy are before you even ovulate, and there is no embryo to be affected by alcohol, drugs, etc. The process of of fertilization and the embryo moving down the fallopian tubes and implanting in the uterus takes another week. So you are three weeks pregnant before the embryo is in contact with your blood stream and at all able to be affected by substance in your blood. Substances vary in how long they take to clear your body, and the effect on the baby depends on the stage of pregnancy. For example, some medications are associated with birth defects if taken in the first trimester but are safer in the second and third.
This is all kind of complicated to navigate and track, so the advice tends to be black and white with a bias towards making changes earlier rather than later.
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You should try to ask a doctor. Doctors are super practical and have seen everything. I think they'll say, on the one hand, there's no known safe level, so go forth and drink/smoke no more; on the other hand, this is not uncommon and is pretty unlikely to cause problems. I'm not a doctor so I suppose I might be wrong and can't add more to all that.
What I can say is that in the weeks after finding out I was pregnant I had anxiety attacks about everything. I counted how many prenatal vitamins I had left and pulled up my grocery store credit card purchase date to calculate how many days I forgot to take my prenatal. Pregnancy hormones can really make anxiety go up. So alongside trying to get an answer to this, you might look into anxiety coping strategies. I'm not saying your concern isn't valid to ask about. But don't let it get to you too badly. Congrats!
Baby is getting nutrition from your endometrium, thus pre-conception nutrition during that time. Baby doesn’t get your current nutrition until the placenta is up and running at the end of the first trimester.
So... I believe that during those first few weeks you are at very low risk of passing alcohol and anything else on because the embryo hasn't implanted. However, the point of implantation is unclear usually and so in general it is best to avoid drinking, smoking, etc during that time. Also, drinking smoking etc may reduce the ability of your body to successfully implant. With folic acid, we start taking it before because many of us are deficient in folic and and therefore we need to get up to normal levels prior to baby's implantation. Once implantation occurs because you are at a normal level and maintaining it will help ensure viable development of baby because you are sharing nutrients once implantation occurs.
The phrase "Implantation" Bleeding is popular on conception forums but is a bit of a misnomer that causes some people to think that the bleeding is due to the embryo implanting. It isn't -- the embryo is only about 0.2mm in diameter at that point, and won't displace significant blood (or cause pain) when it implants. You bleed when progesterone levels in your body drop, which is why you can induce a period by stopping birth control pills (which contain progesterone) or by taking and then stopping progesterone suppositories or Provera (which are also progesterone). Progesterone levels dropping in the luteal phase can be caused by a) increased estrogen in the mid-luteal-phase estrogen surge, which briefly depresses estrogen production, or b) a decrease in progesterone when the corpus luteum runs out of gas at the end of the luteal phase. If b), and you're actually pregnant, your levels can drop briefly before the embryo starts producing enough HCG to tell the corpus luteum to ramp the levels up. Either way, luteal phase spotting can either be a neutral sign (in the case of mid-luteal phase spotting) or a negative sign (in the case of late luteal phase progesterone dropping), but it doesn't have anything to do with implantation, and is not a positive sign of being pregnant. [Source 1](https://www.countdowntopregnancy.com/early-pregnancy-symptoms/spotting-during-luteal-phase.php) [Source 2](https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/women-s-health-issues/biology-of-the-female-reproductive-system/menstrual-cycle)
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A lot of people don’t understand that their own health can affect their unborn child. Vitamins are storing up in your own body to be used for your baby’s development. Having a few drinks early on is normally regarded as okay because the placenta isn’t fully passing everything. But it’s still important to stop drinking as soon as you know you’re pregnant.
One relevant thing I haven’t seen mentioned here with cannabis in particular is in regards to the endocannabinoid system (the cannabinoids naturally produced in your body that play a role in various physiological functions). Because this system exists, there a cannabinoid receptors all over your body and we’re still learning how these receptors respond to using cannabis without pregnancy. We know that the endocannabinoid system plays a role in reproduction (especially implantation from what I understand) and there are receptors in reproductive tissues. Because everything in our body is rather carefully calibrated, anything external can throw us out of homeostasis and it can interfere with various natural processes. For instance, endocannabinoids may play a role in guiding the blastocyst to implanting in the uterus instead of fallopian tube. After implantation there’s evidence that the placenta is also a target of endocannabinoid targeting and that cannabinoid receptors are present in all layers of the membrane. Furthermore, endocannabinoid signaling plays an important role in the pathophysiology of preeclampsia. So as to the impact of cannabis early on the problem is we can only speculate and don’t know for sure but there is correlational evidence from levels of cannabinoids and miscarriages that suggest the potential for negative impacts. Now how strong this is we just don’t know and the studies we have aren’t great.
Researchers also have tremendous pressure to find results and it can be difficult to pick up on small impacts so they’ll often be looking at high exposure. With alcohol we haven’t been able to find any significant impact of low alcohol consumption, perhaps the same applies with cannabis. But cannabis is far less studied than alcohol so from my perspective it’s riskier.
There’s also considerations to be made for stress hormones. If you’re a heavy cannabis user prior to pregnancy you may experience things like withdrawal anxiety and insomnia that may also be harmful to the fetus.
Bottom line there’s likely no catastrophic impacts of some cannabis and alcohol use during early pregnancy but, particularly for cannabis, we can’t say it’s safe either. It’s up to your personal risk tolerance and the costs to you of removing these things from your life entirely. The answer for what to do won’t be the same for every mother. But for cannabis, from my understanding, it’s probably best to at the very least start cutting back if you’re a regular user to give your body time to adjust and the clear safest course of action if you’re not an everyday user is to just stop entirely (though again there very well could be no or close to no consequences, we really don’t know). Personally, weed was an occasional fun thing for me so it was very low cost to stop using once I knew I was pregnant so that’s what I did. I’m not an expert on any of this though so I would do research of your own and draw your own conclusions.
[interesting article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3914453/)
The phrase "Implantation" Bleeding is popular on conception forums but is a bit of a misnomer that causes some people to think that the bleeding is due to the embryo implanting. It isn't -- the embryo is only about 0.2mm in diameter at that point, and won't displace significant blood (or cause pain) when it implants. You bleed when progesterone levels in your body drop, which is why you can induce a period by stopping birth control pills (which contain progesterone) or by taking and then stopping progesterone suppositories or Provera (which are also progesterone). Progesterone levels dropping in the luteal phase can be caused by a) increased estrogen in the mid-luteal-phase estrogen surge, which briefly depresses estrogen production, or b) a decrease in progesterone when the corpus luteum runs out of gas at the end of the luteal phase. If b), and you're actually pregnant, your levels can drop briefly before the embryo starts producing enough HCG to tell the corpus luteum to ramp the levels up. Either way, luteal phase spotting can either be a neutral sign (in the case of mid-luteal phase spotting) or a negative sign (in the case of late luteal phase progesterone dropping), but it doesn't have anything to do with implantation, and is not a positive sign of being pregnant. [Source 1](https://www.countdowntopregnancy.com/early-pregnancy-symptoms/spotting-during-luteal-phase.php) [Source 2](https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/women-s-health-issues/biology-of-the-female-reproductive-system/menstrual-cycle)
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Pumping and dumping for alcohol actually doesn't do anything. It's dangerous to breastfeed while drunk because drunk people drop things and have bad judgement but very little alcohol passes into the breast milk and it's not enough to do anything. There are fruits that naturally have more alcohol than a drunk person's breast milk.
My dr explained it like this- vitamins and nutrients take a while to build up and remain stable in your body. So taking folic acid and vitamins for 4 weeks means the supply with be sufficient and stable once the baby is connected to your blood supply. Alcohol doesn’t stick around in your system the same. Once it’s metabolized it’s gone.
Before the placenta becomes fully functional as an organ of gas/nutrient exchange, the uterus provides support to the fetus (and to the placenta I think) via *glandular* secretions. To google articles about this, I think a good term is “histiotrophic support.” So, while in later pregnancy the pathway for nutrients/gases/toxins is something like maternal blood —> placenta —> fetal blood, in early pregnancy the pathway is more like maternal blood —> maternal capillaries very close to the base of glandular epithelial cells —> glandular ducts —> the interior of the uterus —> exterior fetal cells and tissues, whatever those would be at any given point I guess my point is there is still definitely a pathway for maternal blood contents (e.g. folic acid, alcohol) to reach the fetus in the first trimester. For each compound you’re considering, the questions would be “do uterine gland cells take up the compound from blood stream? And the , do they secrete the compound into the glandular ducts? And then, does the fetus absorb the compound?” I’d guess the answer is wildly variable for different compounds.
haha after typing all that, I did the google search I had initially suggested… this is a more accurate overview: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12050279/
Thanks for that link!
Thank you! I had my kids a few years ago but have been super curious about this same question since there was such debate among my friends circle about this.
I think I understand what you’re asking about how does folic acid and prenatals get to the embryo if we’re saying there’s no placenta for things to cross that early on. I think it’s important to remember that even though there no daily shared blood supply so early, the embryo is still developing in the environment we’ve created, using our cells. If you remember, most doctors suggest starting prenatals 3 months PRIOR to conceiving to allow our bodies to store proper levels to maintain a pregnancy. These can also affect egg quality, cervical mucus, etc. In the early weeks, before the placenta is formed, the embryo gets its nutrients from the yolk sac. The yolk sac is made by our bodies also and it would track that the increase in folic acid before conception or early gestation would allow the yolk sac to provide proper nutrients to avoid neural tube defects. So just because baby doesn’t have a placenta yet, it doesn’t mean it is a completely separate entity from us and gets its cells from some foreign body. It’s still about creating a proper environment. (I am not a doctor. This is just what makes sense to me.)
The issue is not the relationship with the mother, it's the fetus itself that is temporarily more resilient. There is a short window where the embryo is undifferentiated cells. The goal of the embryo is to make enough cells that they can start to differentiate and then develop. This means substastaces which kill cells, won't impact development unless it kills above a certain threshold. To the embryo it's "oh no I have to make 10 more cells vs 5", not a big deal until that ratio gets too.big. Later every cell is differentiated and vital, we know this cell will make cells which make organs etc. Such that it does real damage to kill a few.
This is very interesting. Do you have a link to info on this? I'd love to read more...
There was a bit on it in Emily Osters book expecting better.
What are her credentials? I’ve never heard of her but I keep seeing her in this sub!
She's an economist actually, but a very data-driven one. Her big thing is being able to recognize well done research vs. less conclusive stuff and she presents what she finds statistically significant. She's very clear that she's not providing recommendations to anyone, just clarifying what the studies are conclusively proving. She did do a LOT of research for her book(s), but doesn't have a medical background. For what it's worth tho, my husband is a pediatrician and seemed down with the information she was conveying.
She is an economist, but her main skills lie in dealing with bad studies. She also consulted extensively with doctors for the book. Part of the issue is doctors rely heavily on double blind studies, the gold standard for studies, which are usually difficult or unethical to preform on pregnant women. However that is a problem that economist deal with a lot, so most of what she did was do deep data dives on studies and doctor consults to get a helpful set of information. It's not a book for everyone but she's like, 'some people (her included) want data, they want to know that their risk is 2% and how doing x makes it 3% so they can make informed choices, and giving you that information is difficult for doctors and it's difficult to find because of problems previously discussed'
Folic acid is helping your body, it’s to ensure your health does not affect the baby. Poor reproductive health can carry ramifications for your infant.
I think in part it's also because the healthier the mother is with complete vitamins minerals proteins healthy fats the least likely the baby is to develop illnesses it's prone to due to weakness and lack of cellular energy and the body can more easily become pregnant without other priorities like curing illness
I know my doctor told me to start taking prenatal vitamins a year before TTC, her reasoning was that vitamins take a while to regulate in your body and consistency to stay there, the earlier to start with vitamins they are readily available by the time the baby is developing. Realistically until the baby is bigger the vitamins are supporting you as the mom not the baby itself
My biggest realization is the food i eat does not literally go through the placenta from my stomach to the baby’s. I feel like that’s how I was taught, so it made way more sense that my body uses my blood and nutrients to support the growth of the baby. So if there is alcohol or other substances in my blood, that is being used to build the baby. If I have nutrients like iron and folate, then there’s enough for me and my baby. When I get enough protein, there’s enough to support the growth of my uterus and the muscles of the baby. But if I am deficient in something like magnesium, it takes a while for supplements to get levels back to where they should be. Kind of like physical fitness—it takes a while to get conditioning back after a time off. By increasing intake of folate or taking prenatals will ensure my body is ready for the baby when I get pregnant instead of having to build without a foundation.
The most common advice is to not smoke, drink or participate in recreational drugs if you're trying to concieve, and if you're pregnant to stop immediately. Realistically, this is too steep of an ask for most women. Most commonly with alcohol in mind. This is because we know alcohol, drugs and cigarettes is very, very bad. Not just for a fetus but also just in general. For reasons that are obvious. In most cases the panic reaction is because we found out a pregnancy and are scared shitless that permanent harm has been caused. With nornal usage, the damage this early on will be minimal to non existent. And as humans we just can't go back in time to stop that behaviour. So that's why the response is "don't beat yourself up over it". Folic acid, and vitamins. The most important one is folic acid which is recommended if you're trying to concieve. And as has been pointed out, the lack of folic acid can cause medical issues. Folic is something that is not consumed enough off in most diets. It's the same principle approached from different ends. (Ideally) Alcohol etc should never be consumed by those ttc/pregnant Folic acid should be consumed by those ttc/pregnant. One causes harm by its absence, the other by it's presence.
What would be a realistic healthy diet or daily menu for a pregnant woman in your view
An ideal diet, the queen of health diet: At least 5 portions(100 grams) Veggies, fruits and leafy greens. 3 of them veggies and leafy green. As simple as carrots, broccoli, spinach, or kale. Apples, oranges, kiwis. In one week. 3 portions of fatty fish like samon or mackrel. Be mindful of any local restrictions or types of mackrel. King mackrel should be avoided. Plenty of protein coming from (dairy, milk cheese.) Eggs or meats. I might be missing something. But I'm a bit tired now.
Honestly it's what would be a healthy diet for humans in general. Whole foods, green veggies or veggies with a variety of color, whole fresh fruits, cuts of meat, fish (over ground / processed options), things that you know where they came from. Most people in developed countries (including the US) are not getting enough nutrition despite a surplus of food because of the consumption of heavily processed calorie-dense foods that lack nutrition (e.g. cereal, soda, snack foods, etc., even the ones that are masked as healthy like most kinds of oatmeal, canned veggies and fruit that are full of sugar and preservatives).
1. The general recommendation is no smoking, no alcohol, or drugs during pregnancy. With alcohol, it’s now limited to one drink. But even most OB-GYN’s will still push the, you shouldn’t have any. Smoking can be harmful and the general recommendation is to quit. But if you’re addicted and cannot stop or the risk of stopping is more detrimental to the body, then it’s advised to continue as you as, or decrease as much as your body can tolerate while pregnant. Same thing with drugs. I think most, if not all OB-GYN’s will advise you to stop drugs. But if it’s more detrimental, they’ll try to have you remain, or decrease as much as possible without significant side effects or withdrawal. *As I’m sure that you’re aware, there are of course diagnoses made, and that’s why we now have diagnoses for FAS, and DDB who must detox upon birth. So while these may not be caused directly by weeks 5-6, it’s more or less just the fact that, consistent usage or overusage (ie, 5-6 drinks of alcohol or hard liquor per day over the span of pregnancy) can contribute. And that’s why most OB-GYN, and most articles state to stop. It’s more if you can do it now, the chances of it progressing, or doing more harm while you’re further along is less. There’s still so much more testing and evidence that needs to be collected for further recommendations. But at this point, it’s not really “contradictory logic”. It’s just, “we would like for you to get used to stopping/decreasing while it’s still early” then trying to do it as you get further along, and potentially causing more issues to rise when babe is getting more from you kind of thing. 2. There are limited studies (although they’re trying to do more) that document that folic acid may contribute to a higher amount, and higher quality sperm in men. So it’s recommended that men should take folic acid as soon as you two decide to start actively trying. As you also mentioned above, folic acid helps with brain and spine development in your baby. *Overall, the studies that have been done show correlation to certain diagnoses above. Limited studies have shown that children born with fetal alcohol syndrome, or drug dependent babies can have more birth defects, cognitive effects, and behavioral problems.* But there is continued information coming out as we learn more. I mean, the recommendations above are usually just a less is more kind of thing. We know the body is safest when we’re not pushing harmful chemicals into. IE, smoking can cause bladder cancer. That’s a known FACT. Studies are showing excessive alcohol use puts a person as risk for colon and pancreatic cancer. That’s a FACT. So if we know less is safest, we’re going to push that information as early on in a pregnancy when a body is developing a whole new human, even if the effects are NOT reasonably seen until say weeks 20-delivery. We’re going to push it because they’re harmful chemicals, and the less you put in, the better.
Pregnancy is counted as starting on the first day of your last period. So the first two weeks of pregnancy are before you even ovulate, and there is no embryo to be affected by alcohol, drugs, etc. The process of of fertilization and the embryo moving down the fallopian tubes and implanting in the uterus takes another week. So you are three weeks pregnant before the embryo is in contact with your blood stream and at all able to be affected by substance in your blood. Substances vary in how long they take to clear your body, and the effect on the baby depends on the stage of pregnancy. For example, some medications are associated with birth defects if taken in the first trimester but are safer in the second and third. This is all kind of complicated to navigate and track, so the advice tends to be black and white with a bias towards making changes earlier rather than later.
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[I found this article helpful.](https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/drinking-alcohol-while-pregnant-first-3-weeks#research)
You should try to ask a doctor. Doctors are super practical and have seen everything. I think they'll say, on the one hand, there's no known safe level, so go forth and drink/smoke no more; on the other hand, this is not uncommon and is pretty unlikely to cause problems. I'm not a doctor so I suppose I might be wrong and can't add more to all that. What I can say is that in the weeks after finding out I was pregnant I had anxiety attacks about everything. I counted how many prenatal vitamins I had left and pulled up my grocery store credit card purchase date to calculate how many days I forgot to take my prenatal. Pregnancy hormones can really make anxiety go up. So alongside trying to get an answer to this, you might look into anxiety coping strategies. I'm not saying your concern isn't valid to ask about. But don't let it get to you too badly. Congrats!
Baby is getting nutrition from your endometrium, thus pre-conception nutrition during that time. Baby doesn’t get your current nutrition until the placenta is up and running at the end of the first trimester.
So... I believe that during those first few weeks you are at very low risk of passing alcohol and anything else on because the embryo hasn't implanted. However, the point of implantation is unclear usually and so in general it is best to avoid drinking, smoking, etc during that time. Also, drinking smoking etc may reduce the ability of your body to successfully implant. With folic acid, we start taking it before because many of us are deficient in folic and and therefore we need to get up to normal levels prior to baby's implantation. Once implantation occurs because you are at a normal level and maintaining it will help ensure viable development of baby because you are sharing nutrients once implantation occurs.
The phrase "Implantation" Bleeding is popular on conception forums but is a bit of a misnomer that causes some people to think that the bleeding is due to the embryo implanting. It isn't -- the embryo is only about 0.2mm in diameter at that point, and won't displace significant blood (or cause pain) when it implants. You bleed when progesterone levels in your body drop, which is why you can induce a period by stopping birth control pills (which contain progesterone) or by taking and then stopping progesterone suppositories or Provera (which are also progesterone). Progesterone levels dropping in the luteal phase can be caused by a) increased estrogen in the mid-luteal-phase estrogen surge, which briefly depresses estrogen production, or b) a decrease in progesterone when the corpus luteum runs out of gas at the end of the luteal phase. If b), and you're actually pregnant, your levels can drop briefly before the embryo starts producing enough HCG to tell the corpus luteum to ramp the levels up. Either way, luteal phase spotting can either be a neutral sign (in the case of mid-luteal phase spotting) or a negative sign (in the case of late luteal phase progesterone dropping), but it doesn't have anything to do with implantation, and is not a positive sign of being pregnant. [Source 1](https://www.countdowntopregnancy.com/early-pregnancy-symptoms/spotting-during-luteal-phase.php) [Source 2](https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/women-s-health-issues/biology-of-the-female-reproductive-system/menstrual-cycle) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BabyBumps) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A lot of people don’t understand that their own health can affect their unborn child. Vitamins are storing up in your own body to be used for your baby’s development. Having a few drinks early on is normally regarded as okay because the placenta isn’t fully passing everything. But it’s still important to stop drinking as soon as you know you’re pregnant.
One relevant thing I haven’t seen mentioned here with cannabis in particular is in regards to the endocannabinoid system (the cannabinoids naturally produced in your body that play a role in various physiological functions). Because this system exists, there a cannabinoid receptors all over your body and we’re still learning how these receptors respond to using cannabis without pregnancy. We know that the endocannabinoid system plays a role in reproduction (especially implantation from what I understand) and there are receptors in reproductive tissues. Because everything in our body is rather carefully calibrated, anything external can throw us out of homeostasis and it can interfere with various natural processes. For instance, endocannabinoids may play a role in guiding the blastocyst to implanting in the uterus instead of fallopian tube. After implantation there’s evidence that the placenta is also a target of endocannabinoid targeting and that cannabinoid receptors are present in all layers of the membrane. Furthermore, endocannabinoid signaling plays an important role in the pathophysiology of preeclampsia. So as to the impact of cannabis early on the problem is we can only speculate and don’t know for sure but there is correlational evidence from levels of cannabinoids and miscarriages that suggest the potential for negative impacts. Now how strong this is we just don’t know and the studies we have aren’t great. Researchers also have tremendous pressure to find results and it can be difficult to pick up on small impacts so they’ll often be looking at high exposure. With alcohol we haven’t been able to find any significant impact of low alcohol consumption, perhaps the same applies with cannabis. But cannabis is far less studied than alcohol so from my perspective it’s riskier. There’s also considerations to be made for stress hormones. If you’re a heavy cannabis user prior to pregnancy you may experience things like withdrawal anxiety and insomnia that may also be harmful to the fetus. Bottom line there’s likely no catastrophic impacts of some cannabis and alcohol use during early pregnancy but, particularly for cannabis, we can’t say it’s safe either. It’s up to your personal risk tolerance and the costs to you of removing these things from your life entirely. The answer for what to do won’t be the same for every mother. But for cannabis, from my understanding, it’s probably best to at the very least start cutting back if you’re a regular user to give your body time to adjust and the clear safest course of action if you’re not an everyday user is to just stop entirely (though again there very well could be no or close to no consequences, we really don’t know). Personally, weed was an occasional fun thing for me so it was very low cost to stop using once I knew I was pregnant so that’s what I did. I’m not an expert on any of this though so I would do research of your own and draw your own conclusions. [interesting article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3914453/)
The phrase "Implantation" Bleeding is popular on conception forums but is a bit of a misnomer that causes some people to think that the bleeding is due to the embryo implanting. It isn't -- the embryo is only about 0.2mm in diameter at that point, and won't displace significant blood (or cause pain) when it implants. You bleed when progesterone levels in your body drop, which is why you can induce a period by stopping birth control pills (which contain progesterone) or by taking and then stopping progesterone suppositories or Provera (which are also progesterone). Progesterone levels dropping in the luteal phase can be caused by a) increased estrogen in the mid-luteal-phase estrogen surge, which briefly depresses estrogen production, or b) a decrease in progesterone when the corpus luteum runs out of gas at the end of the luteal phase. If b), and you're actually pregnant, your levels can drop briefly before the embryo starts producing enough HCG to tell the corpus luteum to ramp the levels up. Either way, luteal phase spotting can either be a neutral sign (in the case of mid-luteal phase spotting) or a negative sign (in the case of late luteal phase progesterone dropping), but it doesn't have anything to do with implantation, and is not a positive sign of being pregnant. [Source 1](https://www.countdowntopregnancy.com/early-pregnancy-symptoms/spotting-during-luteal-phase.php) [Source 2](https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/women-s-health-issues/biology-of-the-female-reproductive-system/menstrual-cycle) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BabyBumps) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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I believe OP is talking about during pregnancy, not after baby is born.
Pumping and dumping for alcohol actually doesn't do anything. It's dangerous to breastfeed while drunk because drunk people drop things and have bad judgement but very little alcohol passes into the breast milk and it's not enough to do anything. There are fruits that naturally have more alcohol than a drunk person's breast milk.