Maternal drinking and pregnancy outcome.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a distinct pattern of malformation and mental impairment, to date associated only with advanced stages of maternal alcoholism. Children born to alcoholics are at risk for a wide range of problems, including one or a few of the characteristics of FAS. However, moderate to heavy drinking women, as a group, have a significantly increased probability of delivering smaller babies and having children who show some mild behavioral differences compared to controls whose mothers drink much less or not at all. The present review focuses primarily on recent scientific and medical findings and their implications for future research and prevention efforts.