Planning to Be a Dad? Doc Says Quit Drinking

We've all known pregnant women shouldn't drink, but a new study could shock you. 

A doctor in China is saying men who are planning a family should stop drinking 6 months before conception. The European Journal of Preventive Cardiology published a study this week suggesting that babies born fathers who drank alcohol frequently within 3 months of conception were 44% more likely to be born with congenital heart disease. The likelihood of heart defects was higher for babies born to binge-drinking fathers, at 52%.

Mothers-to-be are advised to stop drinking a year before conceiving. Still, the risk was surprisingly less severe than men. Moms who drank 3 months before conceiving a child had a 16% chance of giving birth to a baby with heart defects.