A friend asked me, offhand in another conversation about a historical fantasy realm, if people stopped drinking when pregnant in pre-modern times. To my knowledge, the answer (at least in my own heavily studied periods surrounding the general Tudor era in England) was no, because so much of hydration REVOLVED around alcohol. But, I did point out that based on what I've read it was generally watered down for the every day consumption and the nobility weren't getting shitty on undiluted wine at breakfast, or at least I didn't think so.

Anyhow! That got us both thinking, and then we both started wondering -- was there a connection made between heavy-drinking mothers and birth defects before "modern" times? Was there a sense that if the mother was drinking a lot there might be problems with the child and a knowledge that one seemed to cause the other?