Gemma Atkinson, 34, is due to give birth to her first baby with Strictly Come Dancing professional Gorka Marquez, 28, in the next few weeks. The actress first announced her pregnancy news on Instagram in February, almost a year after they went public with their relationship. Today, she was joined by a specialist midwife on Hits Radio to discuss the dangers of consuming alcohol while pregnant. “One of my fears was,” she began. “I’m not a big drinker anyway. I drink maybe three or four times a year. When I found out I was pregnant, I actually thought it was a hangover still.
“I’d been out on the Saturday night and I still felt ill on the Wednesday and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I feel shocking!’” Gemma continued. “Turned out I was pregnant.
“I was very early on, but until I’d seen my midwife and had my scan, you have this fear, even from a few drinks right early on.
“Is there still an effect there?” she asked the midwife.
“We get lots of women who come to us with unplanned pregnancies and many women say the same thing,” her guest replied. “They’ve had a drink very early in pregnancy.
“There’s nothing that we can do to change that and we don’t want people to panic about it,” she reassured Gemma.
“The important thing is recognising that, from finding out onwards, that’s the time that you can make a really big difference to your baby’s development by completely stopping any alcohol there.”
Gemma shared a clip of the conversation with her 266,000 Twitter followers, saying: “So lovely chatting Jen out this, feel very grateful to have had this information.
Drymester is a campaign aimed at raising awareness about the risk to unborn children of drinking alcohol during pregnancy.
It is encouraging women to go alcohol-free for the entirety of their pregnancy and emphasises there is no safe time or safe amount of alcohol to drink when pregnant.
Meanwhile, the presenter and actress has been open about her pregnancy journey, keeping her fans updated with regular social media insights.
Last week, Gorka Marquez reacted to Gemma Atkinson’s post about pregnancy changes, in which she highlighted her weight gain and blossoming curves.
Uploading a picture of herself pre-pregnancy, flexing her muscles after a workout, and another which showed her cradling her bump at her baby shower, she wrote in the caption: “70kg vs 85kg. Softer arms, puffier face, bigger a** and thighs, bigger belly, uterus, placenta, water retention, huge rise in oestrogen meaning more cellulite and let’s be honest, my boobs are like the Mitchell brothers.
“ALL of the above means my body is working to grow my baby and I couldn’t be more proud of it,” she added.
Gorka soon shared his pride in his girlfriend, commenting: “And I couldn’t be more proud of you and fancy you more in every way.”
Gemma and Gorka met back in 2017 when she joined the celebrity line-up on Strictly Come Dancing.
Although they found themselves at the centre of romance rumours throughout the series, they both maintained they only began their relationship after the show ended, falling for each other on the Strictly live tour.