Selenium in pregnancy: effect of maternal drinking.

To study the effect of drinking alcohol during pregnancy on serum selenium, selenium concentrations were measured in 41 women (ten abstinent, 31 problem drinkers) throughout pregnancy as well as in 24 nonpregnant abstinent women. In abstinent pregnant women, serum selenium decreased with advancing gestational age, a pattern not affected by moderate maternal drinking (42 to 126 g of ethanol weekly, N = 14). Seventeen women drank heavily (more than 140 g of ethanol weekly), and nine of them (53%) gave birth to infants with fetal alcohol syndrome. The women with infants having fetal alcohol syndrome had higher (P less than 0.05) selenium levels than the abstinent controls both at the 25th to 32nd (63.3 +/- 6.2 versus 56.6 +/- 4.4 micrograms/L) and at the 33rd to 40th gestational weeks (58.6 +/- 3.4 versus 53.5 +/- 5.9 micrograms/L). The selenium levels in umbilical serum were 20 and 33% lower than in maternal serum of abstinent and drinking women, respectively. However, alcohol-damaged newborns did not demonstrate any further decrease in selenium levels. Thus, heavy maternal drinking is accompanied by increased maternal and decreased umbilical concentration of selenium.