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Premature birth linked to drinking
Drinking during pregnancy can not only stunt a baby, it can lead to premature birth, according to United States researchers.Scientists from Canada and the US today say they have new evidence that alcohol, once believed to prevent early delivery, can cause it. They also believe that the risk depends on the quantity and pattern of drinking - and that there may be a critical period during pregnancy when too many drinks can lead to premature birth.
Babies born before their time are underweight, and low birth weight infants are at higher risk of death or long-term illness.
Jocelynn Cook, of the university of Alberta's perinatal research centre, reports in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research that experiments on pregnant mice confirmed that alcohol seemed to influence a baby's development in two ways. It interfered with one hormone involved in pregnancy and increased levels of another in labour. "We still don't know how much alcohol is too much alcohol," said Dr Cook. "It might be different for every woman and every foetus."
She and colleagues found that alcohol could trigger pre-term delivery in mice if consumed on day 16 of their gestation period. She believes there may be a similar critical period in humans.
In a separate article, the journal reported that just a whiff of something can trigger cravings in an alcoholic. Research on rats at the university of California showed that the scent of something associated with alcohol could increase levels of a neurochemical transmitter called dopamine in the brain - and "reinstate alcohol-seeking behaviour".