Babies heavily exposed to alcohol react more slowly, warn experts

PREGNANT women have been urged to abstain from alcohol by scientists who claim that even small amounts can damage the development of a baby’s brain.

Babies of heavy-drinking mothers can develop a wide range of physical and neuro-developmental problems.

However, a team of scientists from San Diego State University in America have used the reaction time of children to check for subtle brain damage which they believe was sustained during pregnancy.

They took two groups of children - one known to have been pre-natally exposed to alcohol, and another non-exposed group.

The children were given simple reaction tests and more complex tests involving making choices between different actions.

While both groups performed similarly well on the simple test, those exposed to alcohol did significantly worse on the complex tests.

One of the American research team, Professor Sandra Jacobson, said: “Even when you control for IQ, the children who are heavily exposed (to alcohol) process information and react more slowly.”

Another of the study authors, Professor Roger Simmons, said the performance of the older, alcohol-exposed children often mirrored that of the younger, non-exposed children.

“We believe that exposure to alcohol results in damage to the brain and peripheral structures, which results in timing deficits,” he said.

According to Professor Peter Hepper of Queen’s University in Belfast, the adult liver can clear large amounts of alcohol from the body in 12 hours, but the undeveloped foetal liver could take up to 48 hours to detoxify.

There is a growing body of evidence linking even moderate alcohol use in pregnancy to deficits in children, he said. “If it was proven that drinking any amount of alcohol in pregnancy caused you to be born with the tip of your finger missing - something that would hardly affect your life at all - then it would be banned instantly.

“However, even though it might be affecting your brain development, there is no similar response,” he said.

Irish College of General Practitioners’ project director, Rolande Anderson said pregnant women have always been advised that abstaining from alcohol is the safest option.“Any drinking carries some risk - obviously heavy-drinking carries a greater risk and low levels of drinking carries a lower risk,” he said.