At each of the five time points, a code was assigned to the woman depending on her weekly alcohol consumption level (none, low, moderate or high). If the woman had one or more binge episode during that time, ‘binge’ replaced the code for weekly alcohol consumption for that time point. Three PAE categories were created for women who abstained in pregnancy: lifetime abstainers; those who did not drink in the three months before pregnancy and those who drank in the three months before pregnancy. A small number of women were not categorised into any of these groups because of their unusual drinking patterns (e.g. abstained in trimester 1, then drank some alcohol at various levels later in pregnancy).
