Pre-conception drinking by dads can damage foetus

Drinking during pregnancy has long been touted as off-limits for mums-to-be but research shows dads who drink pre-conception may jeopardise the health of future offspring.

A study in which male mice were exposed to varying concentrations of alcohol prior to mating showed some of the foetuses they helped conceive suffered abnormal organ development and/or brain development. The male mice in the study not exposed to alcohol sired normal foetuses.

The authors of the study — published in Animal and Cell Systems, the official journal of the Korean Society for Integrative Biology — concluded that alcohol consumption affects genes in sperm which are responsible for normal foetal development.

One group of mice was given normal saline and the mice given alcohol were given a dose twice daily “to minimise the deleterious effects of binge alcohol drinking”.

After seven weeks of alcohol exposure, mice were relaxed for one week and were then mated with non-treated females. Foetal stage analysis was subsequently carried out after the females were euthanised and embryos removed. The number of embryos per mouse was counted and embryo body weights measured. The study’s authors found “severe foetal abnormalities”, including a disorder where the brain is located outside the skull. The researchers said the incidence of developmental abnormalities by alcohol treatment was “statistically significant”.

They concluded that paternal alcohol exposure prior to conception causes developmental defects in the next generation at pre- and post-natal stage.

Also, specific abnormalities such as exencephaly (brain located outside skull) were determined at the foetal stage. Transgenerational toxicity — a health effect that occurs when a pollutant or toxic substance passes from a parent to an offspring — caused by paternal alcohol exposure “is possibly mediated through alcohol-induced changes in sperm at the level of the sperm genome”.

Mums-to-be drinking alcohol during pregnancy is a known risk and cause of foetal alcohol syndrome. These children can suffer retarded intellect, stunted growth and nervous system abnormalities, social problems and isolation.

Until now fathers have not had a causal link to such disabilities. According to this research, it provides the first definitive evidence that fathers’ drinking habits pre-conception can cause significant foetal abnormalities.