Does Brief Intervention Reduce Drinking in Pregnant Women?
Alcohol use by pregnant women can cause birth defects, developmental disorders, and mental retardation in the exposed fetus. To test if brief intervention reduces prenatal alcohol use, researchers randomized 304 pregnant women—all of whom scored positive on the T-ACE* questionnaire and were drinking (or at risk for drinking**)—to either usual care or a 25-minute brief intervention. On average, women in both groups drank 20% of days and 1.8 drinks per drinking day prior to pregnancy and 5% of days and 1.6 drinks per drinking day at enrollment. • Both the intervention and usual care groups decreased drinking, from enrollment to delivery, to 2% of days and 0.5 drinks per day (no significant differences between groups). • Brief intervention was significantly more effective than was usual care at reducing drinking frequency in women who drank more often at baseline. • Among these heavier-drinking women, those who had a partner participate in the intervention had greater reductions in drinki
