Women's frequency of alcohol consumption prior to pregnancy and at their pregnancy-booking visit 2001–2006: A cohort study

With evidence of offspring harms and concern for younger women's drinking behaviours, this study uses a hospital cohort to trend the use and changes in women's reported alcohol consumption. To examine (i) the trend of women's reported alcohol consumption over time, (ii) whether any increases in the frequency of alcohol consumption prior to a pregnancy are accompanied by increases in the frequency of alcohol consumption in pregnancy and (iii) the characteristics of women consuming alcohol at these times. Midwives collected routine data on 19,699 women between 2001 and 2006. Data on women's alcohol use prior to pregnancy and at their pregnancy-booking visit were analysed using a non-parametric test for trend and with bivariate and multivariate tests adjusting for possible confounders. The proportion of women reporting at-least weekly alcohol use prior to pregnancy was 25.4% and 5.9% at their pregnancy-booking visit. A significant linear increase over time (p