Rates of binge drinking, heavy alcohol consumption increase among pregnant women
Binge drinking and heavy alcohol consumption are more common among nonpregnant women than among pregnant women, but researchers found that the prevalence of those risky behaviors is growing at a faster rate in the pregnant population.
“Recent data on binge drinking among pregnant women suggests a modest increase from 2011 to 2018 and no increase from 2018 to 2020,” Jeffrey T. Howard, PhD, an associate professor in the department of public health at the University of Texas, San Antonio, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Network Open. “However, little is known about how longer trends in problematic alcohol use may differ between pregnant and nonpregnant women.”
Howard and colleagues used data from the public use Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System — which defined binge drinking as four or more drinks during a single occasion and heavy alcohol consumption as eight or more drinks per week — to determine changes in drinking trends among pregnant and nonpregnant women from 2011 to 2020. They included 49,098 pregnant women and 1,243,402 nonpregnant women in their cross-sectional study.
Binge drinking and heavy alcohol consumption increased at an average annual percent change (AAPC) of 0.7% and 2.3%, respectively, in nonpregnant women. The AAPC was significant only for heavy alcohol consumption, increasing from 6.6% (95% CI, 6.1%-7.1%) in 2011 to 7.5% (95% CI, 6.9%-8.1%) in 2020.
However, both behaviors grew significantly more problematic for pregnant women, with AAPCs of 8.9% and 11.6% for binge drinking and heavy alcohol consumption, respectively. Specifically, the prevalence of binge drinking increased from 2.5% (95% CI, 1.6%-3.4%) in 2011 to 6.1% (95% CI, 2.2%-10%) in 2020, and the prevalence for heavy alcohol consumption increased from 0.7% (95% CI, 0.3%-1%) in 2011 to 3.2% (95% CI, 0.6%-5.8%) in 2020.
“These results suggest worsening behavioral risks among pregnant women, potentially owing to changes in socioeconomic and psychosocial stressors that may have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Howard and colleagues wrote.