Even Light Drinking Can Affect Children
Drinking During Pregnancy Affect Child's Size Even Years Later
A new study from the University of Pittsburgh confirms that there is simply no safe drinking level for women who are pregnant that will not adversely affect their children, even years after birth.The new research, conducted by Nancy Day, a professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, found that children born to mothers who drink even small amounts of alcohol early in pregnancy are shorter and weigh less at age 14 than children born to mothers who abstain.
It shoudl be emphasized that the weight differences reported in this study were not "defects" but a sign that drinking during pregnancy does have some affect on the growth of children. None of the children in the study suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
"The deficiencies found in the study are slight and fall within normal height and weight ranges," Day said, "but were still surprising. The differences were statistically significant, not a matter of chance."
She found that even light drinking - 1-1/2 drinks a week - had effects on children years later. Children born to women who were light drinkers weighed about 3 pounds less than children born to non-drinkers and children born to heavy drinkers weighed up to 16 pounds less than children born to abstainers.
Day has been studying 565 children whose mothers drank during pregnancy since 1982. She plans to continue tracking the children into early adulthood, looking for signs of any cognitive effects.
"What's interesting here is the women are not alcoholic and not heavy drinkers and you still can detect the effects of alcohol on their children" so many years after birth, Dr. Sandra Jacobson, a psychiatrist at Wayne State University told reporters. "The concern is, did it also affect any of the neurobehavioral development of the child?"
"The message should be that women should not drink at all during pregnancy," Day said.
The study appears in the October 2002 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Experimental and Clinical Research.
