Meconium Indicators of Maternal Alcohol Abuse during Pregnancy and Association with Patient Characteristics

Aim. Identification of women with moderate alcohol abuse during pregnancy is difficult. We correlated self-reported alcohol consumption during pregnancy and patient characteristics with objective alcohol indicators measured in fetal meconium.Methods. A total of 557 women singleton births and available psychological tests, obstetric data and meconium samples were included in statistical analysis. Alcohol metabolites (fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) and ethyl glucuronide (EtG)), were determined from meconium and correlated with patient characteristics.Results. We found that 21.2% of the 557 participants admitted low-to-moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Of the parameters analyzed from meconium, only EtG showed an association with alcohol history (P<0.01). This association was inverse in cases with EtG value above 120 ng/g. These values indicate women with most severe alcohol consumption, who obviously denied having consumed alcohol during pregnancy. No other associations between socioeconomic or psychological characteristics and the drinking status (via meconium alcohol metabolites) could be found.Conclusion. Women who drink higher doses of ethanol during pregnancy, according to metabolite measures in meconium, might be less likely to admit alcohol consumption. No profile of socioeconomic or psychological characteristics of those women positively tested via meconium could be established.

The Association of Parental Alcohol Abuse and Depression with Severe Emotional and Behavioural Problems in Adolescents: A Clinical Study

Background: Earlier studies have indicated associations between parental psychiatric problems, such as depression, and substance abuse and adolescent problems. Aims: This study aimed to determine whether parental psychiatric problems are associated with problems and problem behaviour in adolescents in a clinical sample. Methods: The study subjects were 70 outpatient adolescents (age 13–18 years, boys 30%) and their parents. The adolescents were assessed using the structural clinical interview for DSM-III-R (SCID) and a semi-structured questionnaire, and the parents were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results: Maternal alcohol abuse and depression were associated with serious problems, especially among girls, and paternal alcohol abuse was associated with adolescent health-compromising behaviour. Maternal depression and alcohol abuse had no association with adolescent health-compromising behaviour. Maternal depression without alcohol abuse was associated with the diagnosis of major depressive disorder in adolescents, but not with other adolescent problems, while paternal depression without alcohol abuse was not associated with any adolescent problems. Conclusions: Despite the small study sample, these findings indicate that parental psychiatric problems and alcohol abuse are correlated with adolescent psychological problems and should be considered and assessed when assessing adolescents.

Synthesizing Animal and Human Studies of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

The primary focus of this volume is on the impact of alcohol on brain development. It is a perfect example of how research on both animals and humans can interact to produce very important findings. In the case of prenatal alcohol exposure, dialogue between animal and human researchers has proved to be very profitable for both lines of research. Initial observations by human researchers identified a syndrome of facial stigmata, physical malformations, and early behavioral disturbances that was related to maternal alcohol abuse during pregnancy. They gave this syndrome the name Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. However, human researchers were unable to state unequivocally that prenatal alcohol exposure was teratogenic to the fetus. Thus, they turned to animal researchers who were able to model Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in a variety of animals and to confirm the teratogenicity of alcohol on the developing fetus. The quarter century of studies of the damage caused by prenatal alcohol exposure is replete with such interactions between these two groups of researchers. Without the input and pioneering studies of animal researchers on the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure, human researchers would have much less understanding of the damage caused by alcohol exposure in utero or insights into possible treatment or remediation strategies for those damaged by alcohol exposure.