Jr. Hankin et al., HEEDING THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE WARNING LABEL DURING PREGNANCY - MULTIPARAE VERSUS NULLIPARAE, Journal of studies on alcohol, 57(2), 1996, pp. 171-177
Objective: We compared the impact of the Federal Alcoholic Beverage Wa
rning Label on multiparae (women with at least one previous live birth
) and nulliparae (women with no previous live births). The label, impl
emented on November 18, 1989. urges women not to drink during pregnanc
y because of the risk of birth defects. If multiparae drank during pri
or pregnancies, delivering apparently normal babies, we hypothesized t
hat the warning might be less salient for them. Method: We studied 17,
456 inner city black gravidas seen between September 1986 and Septembe
r 1993 at one antenatal clinic. Time series analysis (ARIMA) examined
trends in monthly means of antenatal drinking scores (alcohol consumpt
ion adjusted for weeks' gestation, age. parity and periconceptional dr
inking). Results: For nulliparae (n = 7,349), reported drinking began
to show a significant decline in June 1990, 7 months after the impleme
ntation of the warning label (t = 2.00, p < .04). In contrast, multipa
rae (n = 10,107) showed no change in reported drinking (t = 1.23) post
label. Conclusions: Given previous results that multiparae drink more
and that heavier drinkers are ignoring the warning label, these data a
re very distressing and suggest the importance of targeting multiparae
for intensive prevention efforts.