Pregnant Women
The consumption of alcoholic beverages in pregnant women can cause malformations of the embryo and their offspring may exhibit symptoms of foetal alcohol effects, or a collection of foetal alcohol effects called foetal alcohol syndrome; this relationship has been established for heavy alcohol consumption. A no-effect level to prevent harming the unborn child, however, has not been established. This is the reason why alcoholic beverages should be avoided during pregnancy.
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OBJECTIVE: Alcohol use during pregnancy can harm the developing fetus. The exact amount, pattern, and critical period of exposure necessary for harm to occur are unclear, although official guidance often emphasizes precautionary abstention. The impacts on fertility and breastfeeding are also unclear. Information on alcohol and pregnancy is disseminated by the alcohol industry-funded organizations, and there are emerging concerns about its accuracy, suggesting the need for detailed analysis. METHOD: Information on alcohol consumption in relation to fertility, pregnancy, and breastfeeding was extracted from the websites of 23 alcohol industry-funded bodies (e.g., Drinkaware [United Kingdom] and DrinkWise [Australia]), and 19 public health organizations (e.g., Health.gov and NHS Choices). Comparative qualitative and quantitative analysis of the framing and completeness of this information…
It is common knowledge that alcohol consumption during pregnancy would cause cognitive impairment in children. However, recent works suggested that the risk of drinking during pregnancy may have been exaggerated. It is critical to determine whether and up to which amount the consumption of alcohol will affect the cognitive development of children. We evaluate time-varying functional connectivity using magnetoencephalogram data from somatosensory evoked response experiments for 19 teenage subjects with prenatal alcohol exposure and 21 healthy control teenage subjects using a new time-varying connectivity approach, combining renormalised partial directed coherence with state space modeling. Children exposed to alcohol prenatally are at risk of developing a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) characterized by cerebral connectivity deficiency and impaired cognitive abilities. Through…
BACKGROUND: Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) typically is observed among individuals with high prenatal alcohol exposures (PAE), but exposure histories obtained in clinical diagnostic settings are often inaccurate. The present analysis used the Lifestyle During Pregnancy Study (LDPS) to assess the potential effects of low-to-moderate average weekly alcohol consumption and binge drinking in early pregnancy on facial features associated with FAS among children 5 years of age. METHODS: The analysis is a prospective follow-up study of 670 women and their children sampled from the LDPS cohort based on maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy. The 4-Digit Code FAS Facial Photographic Analysis Software was used to measure the magnitude of expression of the 3 diagnostic facial features of FAS from standardized digital photographs.…
AIM: This paper systematically reviews the literature on the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on early child development from birth to 5 years with the aim to synthesize the developmental outcomes associated with prenatal alcohol exposure, and inform further research to improve our knowledge of the manifestations of prenatal alcohol exposure. METHODS: Electronic databases (MEDLINE, Psych INFO, and Psych ARTICLES) were searched to find papers on the developmental outcomes of prenatal alcohol exposure in neonates, infants and toddlers and pre-school aged children. Studies were selected based on participants self-reporting alcohol consumption during pregnancy (either prospectively or retrospectively) and/or children being diagnosed with FASD based on a standardized assessment that includes a dysmorphology examination. The search was limited to peer-reviewed, English…
OBJECTIVES: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) is a worldwide problem. Maternal alcohol consumption is an important risk factor for FASD. It remains unknown which alcohol consumption patterns most strongly predict FASD. The objective of this study was to identify these. DESIGN: Systematic literature review. METHODS: We searched in PubMed, PsychINFO, PsycARTICLES, ERIC, CINAHL, Embase and MEDLINE up to August 2018. The query consisted of keywords and their synonyms related to FASD, pregnancy and behaviour. Studies were excluded when not published in English, were reviews or involved non-human subjects. Substantial heterogeneity precluded aggregation or meta-analysis of the data. Instead, data were qualitatively inspected. RESULTS: In total, 21 studies were eligible for further data analysis. All studies that measured both maternal alcohol…