Tag: Pregnancy and alcohol

Pregnant women’s alcohol use is correlated with their partners’ drinking, according to a large European study — and partners are unlikely to meaningfully reduce or halt their alcohol consumption while expecting a baby. The findings may offer a new way of identifying women at risk of drinking in pregnancy and potentially intervening to prevent or reduce harm. Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can seriously impair fetal health and development, causing stillbirth and lifelong disabilities. These include fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), the primary cause of non-genetic cognitive disability worldwide. Although the drinking patterns of women and their partners are known to be correlated, little attention has been given to partners’ alcohol use during pregnancy and how this may affect women’s drinking and pregnancy outcomes. For the study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, investigators searched for associations between pregnant women’s and their partners’ alcohol us