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Drinking while pregnant? There may be a way to keep babies safer
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Good news for the pregnant chardonnay-sipping set: Researchers from San Diego State University are experimenting to see if supplementing drinking mothers with an extra dose of choline, a nutrient that plays a key role in learning, will help prevent or reduce the damage that occurs to babies born to heavy drinking mothers. It had positive outcomes with rats, and now Ukranian women are part of the experiment.
Due to the fact that doctors are unable to pinpoint a safe limit of alcohol exposure to fetuses, not drinking at all while pregnant is recommended. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 12 percent of pregnant women indulge in alcoholic beverages and 2 percent binge drink. These numbers haven't changed much since 1991. As a result, 1,000 to 6,000 babies are born each year in the U.S. with fetal alcohol syndrome, which is one preventable cause of mental retardation.
The Ukraine has a higher number of babies born with FAS, which is why SDSU is continuing its research there. The experiments on rats showed that rats born to mothers exposed to alcohol and then extra choline improved the ability of the pups to learn. In the Ukraine, 600 pregnant women who admit to drinking will be the subject of an experiment. In addition to counseling in which they will be encouraged to stop drinking, some moms will be given a prenatal vitamin supplement whereas other moms will be given vitamins plus an extra dose of choline. Researchers have made it clear, however, that a pill will not stop permanent damage from exposure to alcohol in utero.
It will be interesting to see what the results of this experiment are. Certainly a glass or two of wine during pregnancy is not very harmful - it is the long-term, excessive drinking that worries doctors. But will this pill simply provide mothers with alcohol abuse issues that may have been able to stop drinking altogether instead say, "Hey, I can keep drinking!" Or would they have kept drinking anyway?
Source: Associated Press
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