Is Drinking Palm Wine During Pregnancy Safe?

In some parts of Nigeria, pregnant women are given palm wine to drink but the question of whether it's safe to drink palm wine during pregnancy still abound.

Palm wine offers a variety of benefits potassium, iron and 3 different vitamins not only that, it's good for the eyesight, breast milk production and treats conjunctivitis. The benefits of palm wine are numerous so if you're a fan of palm wine, good news!

But can pregnant women drink palm wine?

Yes from the above listed benefits of palm wine we can say palm wine is beneficial which is probably why we've got a lot of pregnant women here on Mamalette asking questions as to how safe it is for them to drink palm wine during pregnancy.

Ah this question of taking palm wine is controversial though, village women drink palm wine during pregnancy and some have testified that nothing happened to their baby or them but how do we round all of them up so we can know if there's one out of them that took palm wine and witnessed complications during pregnancy?

Meaning we can't generalise based on a few people's words. In fact, even some Mamalette said she drank palm wine through out their pregnancy and they had a healthy baby, again, this isn't enough evidence that drinking palm wine during pregnancy is safe.

What's the major problem though? Palm wine is alcoholic! And women who are pregnant have been advised not to drink alcohol, children whose mother drank alcohol a lot during pregnancy are more likely to be born with birth defect. Although some people choose to drink it moderately.

The alcohol content of palm wine may be safe if watered down, if taken in small quantity and if your pregnancy is not high risk but some of the palm wine they sell out there have been mixed, with alcohol. Also, the alcoholic content of palm wine vary largely based on the origin of the sap and the stage of fermentation and distillation. If the palm wine is unfermented, it will be non-alcoholic but immediately it's fermented the alcohol level increase.

Unless you meet with the palm wine tapper and tell him you wish they'd not ferment the palm oil so you'll get a perfectly safe to drink palm wine don't just drink any kind of palm wine. Meanwhile you can buy palm wine from online sellers, you should be able to buy the palm wine type that's safe for pregnant women there.

So yes, it's good for pregnant women but I can't say it's safe.