Monday, Jul. 14, 1975
Liquor and Babies
Aristotle observed that "drunken and harebrained" women most often had children like themselves, "morose and languid." Eighteenth-century British physicians reported that drinking gin led not only to the widespread debauchery of the time--which was vividly depicted in Hogarth's etchings--but also to a spate of "weak, feeble and distempered children." Modern medicine has only recently confirmed the ancient folklore. Alcoholic mothers often do bear children with a host of birth defects: skull and facial deformations, defects in the cardiovascular system and mental and physical retardation.
A revival of interest in the existence of what doctors call fetal alcohol syndrome was spurred in 1973, when Drs. Kenneth Jones and David Smith at the University of Washington School of Medicine reported in the Lancet on eight children with similar birth and growth defects. Their investigation revealed that all were born to mothers who were chronic alcoholics.
Since then, other studies have underlined Jones' warning that drink is dangerous to the unborn. At a recent session on fetal alcoholism sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism, Smith reported that he and his colleagues had personally evaluated 41--and were aware of 37 other--cases of the fetal syndrome. A physician in Nantes, France, where alcoholism is endemic, has detailed 125 cases. In a study of 82 births at Boston City Hospital, researchers discovered that of nine babies born to mothers found to be heavy drinkers, only one was normal.
Bad Breath. These studies are backed up by animal research, which shows that ethanol, the intoxicating ingredient in liquor, is capable of causing birth defects in chicks and rats. Studies of the fetuses of alcoholic mothers also reveal that ethanol easily crosses the placenta from mother to child. Smith reports that the amniotic fluid that had surrounded one of the babies he examined had a definite odor of ethanol. A second baby born to an alcoholic mother emerged from the womb with the smell of ethanol on his breath. A third was in even worse shape. At birth, his blood contained an ethanol level of 150 milligrams per 100 milliliters. An adult with the same alcohol level in his blood would be considered grossly intoxicated.
Doctors still have not found out how alcohol leads to the defects, which in extreme cases can be fatal. But they have seen enough victims of the syndrome to justify warning prospective mothers to stop drinking heavily if they plan to become pregnant, and to consider having abortions if they become pregnant while addicted to alcohol.
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