Alcohol
The National Health and Medical Research Council recommends that you don’t drink alcohol during pregnancy or while breastfeeding.
Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can affect the unborn baby by damaging the development of the baby’s brain and slowing down physical growth. Babies affected by alcohol tend to have low birth weights. They may also have physical and behavioural problems at birth and throughout childhood.
It is not currently known what level of alcohol is safe to drink during pregnancy. Therefore, it is best to avoid drinking alcohol during pregnancy as much as possible.
For support and advice on decreasing or to stop drinking alcohol speak to your doctor or midwife for support and advice. If you drank alcohol early on before you knew you were pregnant, the risk to your baby from low-level drinking is likely to be low. The safest thing to do is to stop drinking altogether while you are pregnant. If you are worried ask your doctor or midwife for advice .
Not drinking alcohol is the safest option when breastfeeding. If you wish to drink alcohol you should avoid it in the first month after delivery until breastfeeding is well established. After that limit your alcohol intake to no more than two standard drinks a day and you should avoid drinking immediately before breastfeeding. You should also consider expressing milk in advance as alcohol is concentrated in breast milk.
For more information see http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/ds10syn.htm