How does alcohol affect the unborn foetus?
Question: How does alcohol affect the foetus? Answer: Alcohol passes from mother to baby through the placenta. When a pregnant women drinks, her unborn baby does so too. Abundant evidence, from both animal studies and human experience, has shown heavy alcohol intake to cause malformations in the developing foetus. Detrimental effects in the offspring have been labelled the foetal alcohol syndrome. Features of this syndrome include: growth failure, mental retardation, small head size, facial and skeletal joint abnormalities. The effects are dose and time-related. In addition, infants born to mothers who use alcohol during pregnancy experience a higher rate of spontaneous abortion and low birth weight delivery. The question of how much moderate drinking is safe during pregnancy has not been answered. And until a safe level of consumption is identified, women should avoid all alcohol throughout the course of pregnancy.
