Can booze harm your unborn baby?

It's the natural reaction of any mother on finding that there is something wrong with her precious new baby. When Katie Price, aka glamour model Jordan, found out that her baby Harvey, now nine weeks old, had been born blind, her first instinct was to blame herself - could it have been her hedonistic lifestyle that had caused her son's disability? She had continued nightclubbing during her pregnancy, and was reported to have been drinking alcohol when seven months pregnant.

The "What if ?" factor - whether or not to drink during pregnancy, and if so, how much is too much - is a question that obsesses mothers-to-be. Chat rooms of babyrelated websites are full of such discussions, with opinions ranging from the liberal "little-of-what-you-fancy-does-you-good", to the draconian "how-can-you-feed-drugs-to-your-helpless-infant?" The trouble is that no one knows where the limits are, though it is becoming increasingly clear that for the pregnant woman, less is better, where alcohol is concerned.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommend limiting intake to no more than one unit a day. Official guidelines from the Department of Health advise no more than four units a week, while the Health Education Authority says a "small amount" of alcohol is perfectly acceptable - but by that, they mean one or two units a week.

Less is said on the sort of alcohol - it's the volume that counts - though it is easier to spin out a unit of alcohol in a longer drink (half a pint of beer, a glass of wine, a couple of weak spritzers) than drinking shots of vodka (one pub measure) or tequila (ditto). Red wine is no better or worse than white wine, although a good claret will help boost iron levels.

What is very clear is that too much alcohol harms a baby directly - and that even moderate drinking can lead to miscarriage, premature labour or low birthweight babies. More than six units a day, and the risk of damaging your baby is very high, and likely to lead to a condition called Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).

This can slow the growth of the foetus, and result in mental retardation, which will affect a baby's ability to learn and, more immediately, its hearing and sight.

FAS babies tend to weigh less, have smaller heads, and be shorter than normal, and can have pronounced deformation of facial features. Women who drink between two and six units of alcohol a day can provoke a milder form of FAS, called FAE, Foetal Alcohol Effects, and their babies are more likely to have problems with learning speech, attention span, language and hyperactivity than those of women who did not drink.

Many medical professionals revised their ideas on safe alcohol limits during pregnancy sharply downwards a couple of years ago, after a study at Queen's University, Belfast, found that the "startle" response in 25-week-old foetuses was greatly decreased in mothers who drank four units of alcohol a week.

Previously, the overwhelming evidence has been that low-level drinking is not harmful, but the message is getting through - like many mothers-to-be, Liz Hurley gave up drinking and smoking the second that she knew she was pregnant. That, though, may have something to do with how much time she has spent in the States, where drinking during pregnancy is socially unacceptable; the National Institute of Health advises against it, and every bar brandishes a notice warning: "Products sold here cause reproductive harm and birth defects."

"Drinking during pregnancy is an absolute no-no as far as I'm concerned," says top midwife and nutritional adviser Zita West, whose latest book, Natural Pregnancy (Dorling Kindersley, £12.99) warns against alcohol. "Government guidelines allow women to drink when pregnant, but I say that having a glass of wine when pregnant is like giving it to your baby - because it travels straight across the placenta from the maternal bloodstream. Alcohol is a drug, and during pregnancy, there is only one safe limit for drugs, and that is none."

Some women prefer to avoid alcohol-during the early part of pregnancy, when their baby's major organs are developing, and allow themselves to drink in the later stages of pregnancy. For West, though, it's zero tolerance throughout, though she will allow women who are trying to conceive the odd glass of wine, simply because of the relaxing effects it can have.

"I do advise women not to drink during the later part of their cycle, though, because that is when they are ovulating, and during the following week is the time when they might become pregnant," says West.

But even with her hardline approach, she feels it is highly unlikely that it was Jordan's alcohol consumption that led to her baby's blindness. "It sounds much more like a genetic or hereditary defect," she admits.

Kate Moss, who has been photographed smoking, and sighted with a glass of wine over the past few months, may prefer to listen to the advice of Donald Gibb, an independent obstetrician working at the Portland Hospital and Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, north London, where Kate Moss is due to have her baby in two months' time. Dr Gibb takes a much more relaxed view on alcohol. "There is no question that Foetal Alcohol Syndrome exists, but you need to drink a large quantity of alcohol to get to that stage," he says. "I don't ban alcohol for pregnant women because I believe it relaxes the mind, which is important during pregnancy. Also, in India and Asia alcohol was used to treat uterine contractions, so if someone is getting frequent painful contractions during the second half of her pregnancy, I will suggest that she has a small glass of wine."

Ultimately, everyone metabolises alcohol differently, and how your body will deal with it is something no one can tell you. Do you really, really want and need that drink? If so, have it - but if possible, for the sake of your conscience as well as your baby's health, you may be better off without it.

As for poor Jordan, it now appears that baby Harvey's disability is one of those million-to-one pieces of plain bad luck. "I immediately asked if I was the cause - was my lifestyle responsible for Harvey's blindness?" she says. "The doctor said it wouldn't have caused his blindness; it's just a terrible tragedy."