In the majority of U.S. states, women are asked after delivery whether they smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy. The responses are included on birth certificates and records of birth defects.

Because most mothers lie about drinking and smoking during pregnancy, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said national statistics on birth defects are inaccurate and should be thrown out.

Marc Weisskopf, an epidemiologist with the CDC, said women fail to disclose the information because they think they haven't consumed enough alcohol to hurt the child.

His study compared the responses of women after delivery to what they said in a telephone survey several years later. Weisskopf found that only seven of 278 women admitted alcohol use on the birth certificate, while 32 admitted it in the telephone survey.

The study estimated that the number of women who actually drank during pregnancy was nearly 20 times the number who admitted it on birth certificates, and recommended that the government stop using alcohol data from birth certificates until accuracy can be improved.

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