About one in 10 pregnant women in the U.S. reported drinking alcohol, risking serious birth defects for their children, according to new data.
In addition to the data on drinking alcohol, about 3 percent of pregnant women ages 18 to 44 years old reported binge drinking, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We know that alcohol use during pregnancy can cause birth defects and developmental disabilities in babies, as well as an increased risk of other pregnancy problems, such as miscarriage, stillbirth and prematurity,” said Coleen Boyle, director of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, in a statement.
Women 35 to 44 years old were the highest users of alcohol at about 18 percent, with college graduates second at 13 percent and unmarried women at nearly 13 percent.
Researchers looked at data from 2011 to 2013 from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which is a survey of the U.S. population.
