A new study has found pregnant women who drink as little as one glass of wine a week could run the risk of lowering their child's IQ.
Vashti Newcomb is a little over a month away from giving birth to her second child and says deciding whether or not to drink alcohol during her pregnancies was a 'no-brainer.'
"You think about what you're eating, you think about how everything you have goes straight to them, so I would have never forgiven myself if something I did affected my child for the rest of its life," Mrs Newcomb said.
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Advice on how much women can drink during their pregnancy has varied over the years, with a couple of glasses of wine per week once considered acceptable in Australia.
But a new British study by researchers from Oxford and Bristol universities says even that could prove risky.
Doctor Rob Gray from Oxford University warns, "moderate drinking might be harmful during preganancy, and it's best to avoid it."
The study surveyed thousands of mothers and their children, and some of them were found to be genetically less able to process alcohol.
In that group it was discovered that children from mothers who drank up to two glasses of wine in a week, scored slightly lower in IQ tests than children whose mothers didn't drink anything at all.
According to the University of Queensland, about 80 per cent of Australian women consume alcohol at low-to-moderate levels during pregnancy, compared to about 12 per cent in Sweden and 10 per cent in the United States.
Professor Caroline Homer has been a midwife for more than 20 years. Her advice to expectant mothers is to avoid alcohol altogether. She also thinks anyone considering having a baby should give up drinking a few months beforehand.
'We just don't know what the effects are on the developing baby. There are genetic changes that are possible with all consumption of toxins, so it's just really important not to put anything in your body that could cause a problem," Ms Homer says.
National antenatal guidelines which make the same recommendations are due to be released in the coming weeks.
