Following a strong backlash prompted by recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for sexually active women to avoid drinking alcohol if they aren’t using birth control, the CDC has defended its words. Many women considered its suggestion insulting, severe and impractical.

In an interview on Friday, Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, said that they weren’t as clear as they had hoped to be.

Released on Tuesday, the focus of the CDC report was on the likelihood that children could develop fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, estimating that 3.3 million women of the age group 15 to 44 drink alcohol while not using birth control and put their infants at the risk of the disorders.

According to the report, women who want to conceive or might get pregnant must avoid drinking alcohol, because nearly 50% all pregnancies in the United States are not planned and most women aren’t aware that they have conceived until their pregnancy becomes four to six weeks old.

However, the idea that fertile women, who don’t use contraception, must indefinitely not consume alcohol hasn’t been received well by several women.

However, Dr. Schuchat, said that the intention of the CDC was to tell about the risk of drinking before a woman knows she has conceived and to demonstrate that alcohol’s bad effects on a developing baby were ‘completely preventable’ not to set down a lifestyle or recommend women to plan their whole lives around a imaginary baby.

Dr. Schuchat said, “We’re really about empowering women to make good choices and to give them best information we can so they can decide what they want to do themselves. Alcohol in that period can be particularly risky, so wanted to ensure people are aware of that”. Dr. Schuchat added that what people with that information is obviously up to them.