Real Housewives of New York’s Alex McCord and husband Simon van Kempen are causing a stir over their parenting advice in their new book “Little Kids Big City: Tales From A Real House In New York City.”
The couple who hail from Brooklyn rather than Manhattan like the other “housewives” have been the butt of criticism about they way the live — their Brooklyn townhouse is a mess — and the way the raise their children.
Now Alex’s revelation in the book that she drank while pregnant is raising eyebrows, according to the New York Daily News’ Gatecrasher gossip column.
“The pair, who have been criticized in the past for their child-rearing skills on air,” the column notes.
For example, Countess LuAnn Delessepps recently sniffed at the behavior of their son, Francois, when he climbed up a stranger’s leg in during an event in the Hamptons.
“Throughout my pregnancy, I gave into every craving I felt,” Alex says in one chapter. “When I wanted to have a drink, I did.”
McCord says she was sipping on champagne when Simon escorted her to the hospital while in labor.
Some experts say moderate drinking during pregnancy is acceptable, but others believe even one drink is like playing Russian Roulette with your baby’s health, according to medical references.
One thing is clear, if you take a drink your unborn child takes the same drink.
Alcohol can interfere with a fetus’s ability to get oxygen and nourishment, and a fetus generally has very little tolerance for alcohol. Heavy drinking can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome.
In a national survey of 1,200 pregnant women, more than 54 percent said they had used alcohol or tobacco during their pregnancies, and three percent said they had used an illicit drug.
“The other Housewives have all made their own backhanded comments on the show about Alex and Simon’s parenting, and this book is only going to make things worse,” insider told Gatecrasher.
The book is slated for release tomorrow, April 6th.
To those with room to judge, I say “Get a hobby, people.”