Maternal alcoholism

The consequences of maternal alcohol consumption are tragic and last a lifetime for the exposed infant. In 1989, Michael Dorris described the life of his adopted son Able as that of a drowning man, one conceived in an ethanol bath unable to find the shore. 

The Seychellois constitute a generally healthy population, with low maternal alcohol consumption and tobacco use (<2%). 

Damgaard IN, Jensen TK, Petersen JH, et al. Cryptorchidism and maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Environ Health Perspect 2007 115(2) 272—7. 

Ethanol is a teratogen partly because it inhibits embryonic cellular proliferation. Maternal alcoholism causes fetal alcohol syndrome, which is characterized by abnormal function of the central nervous system, microcephaly, cleft palate, and micrognathia. 

Risk factors associated with childhood AML include Hispanic ethnicity, prior exposure to alkylating agents or epipodophyllotoxins, and in utero exposure to ionizing radiation. Maternal alcohol consumption, parental and child pesticide exposure, and parental benzene exposure are also potential risk factors for childhood AML. 

Eight unrelated children of three different ethnic groups, all born to mothers who were chronic alcoholics, have a similar pattern of craniofacial, limb, and cardiovascular defects associated with prenatal-onset growth deficiency and developmental delay. This seems to be the first reported association between maternal alcoholism and aberrant morphogenesis in the offspring. 

The second paper, by the first two authors of the first paper, named the condition fetal alcohol syndrome and added three more cases.9 Its short historical review pointed out that the association between maternal alcoholism and faulty development of the offspring is alluded to in early Greek and Roman mythology. ... 

But after that report interest apparently withered. From the beginning of modern medicine in the early nineteenth century to 1973, nothing but sporadic clinical reports appeared suggesting a link between maternal alcoholism and fetal damage. With the Lancet papers, interest in the connection increased, such that the existence of FAS began to raise questions about the role that any degree of alcohol consumption might play in fetal abnormalities. 

Latino-Martel P, Chan DSM, Druesne-Pecollo N, Barrandon E, Hercberg S, Norat T. Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy and risk of childhood leukemia. Systematic review and meta-analysis. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2010 19(5) 1238-60. 

O Connor MJ, Sigman M, Kasari C. 1993. Interactional model for the association among maternal alcohol use, mother-infant interaction, and infant cognitive development. Infant Behav Dev 16 177-192. 

NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute). 2002. Framingham Heart Study. SO Years of Research Success. Online. Available at http //www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/framingham/index.html. Accessed July 1,2002. O Connor MJ, Sigman M, Kasari C. 1993. Interactional model for the association among maternal alcohol use, mother-infant interaction, and infant cognitive development. Inf Behav Dev 16 177-192. 

Drugs and environmental chemicals Androgenic hormone Folic antagonists Thalidomide Oral anticoagulants Maternal alcoholism Combinations and interactions Unknown... 

In the Cleveland study, we followed a very detailed gestational period protocol (Sokol, Martier and Ernhart, 1985) for assessing foetal alcohol exposure and for obtaining a history of maternal alcohol abuse. Furthermore,... 

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