RT Journal
A1 Kuehn BM
T1 FEtal alcohol exposure
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2012
FD August 22
VO 308
IS 8
SP 753c
OP 753
DO 10.1001/2012.jama.10699
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/2012.jama.10699
AB 
To determine the prevalence of individual symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome in children whose mothers consumed large amounts of alcohol during pregnancy, the scientists compared data on 101 pregnant mothers in Chile who drank at least 4 drinks per day with a matched group of 101 mothers who did not drink alcohol during pregnancy (Kuehn D et al. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2012.01794.x. [published online July 23, 2012]). They found that 44% of the children born to heavy maternal drinkers had functional central nervous system abnormalities, compared with 13.6% of children who were not exposed to alcohol. Additionally, 27.2% of the exposed children had growth restriction, compared with 12.5% of the control group, and 17.3% of the exposed children had facial abnormalities, compared with 1.1% of the control group. However, one limitation of the study was that data to assess abnormalities were available for only about half of the exposed children.