According to recent research conducted in the US, the drinking of alcohol during pregnancy can cause teratogenesis (the development of embryonic defects. The estimated incidence of Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), is approximately 1% of live birth in the US. However this is not true, not all women who drink during pregnancy give birth to children with noticeable deficits. An experiment conduct on mice has suggested that genetics is a way to help explain alcohol-related susceptibility and resistance.
There are many types of alcohol-related deficits including, pre/postnatal growth retardation, craniofacial anomalies, central nervous system dysfunctions, limb and skeletal malformation, anomalies in organs (including brain, eyes, and kidney).
It is true that not all women who consume alcohol will have children, who have deficits, however later on those children may develop behavioral dysfunctions, just to name a few, hyperactivity, learning problems impulse controls. Again there is evidence to suggest this is wrong also. Chris Downing, a research associate at the University of Colorado and corresponding author for the study, suggested many factors have been shown to play a role in the development of FASD, including the amount, timing and pattern of maternal alcohol consumption, maternal age and parity, maternal ethnicity and socioeconomic status, cultural factors, maternal smoking and other drug abuse, and maternal diet/nutrition. So you can say the environment and the routine in which a pregnant mother is in may affect the embryonic development. In addition, the studies between human and mice show that both maternal and fetal genotypes- in conjunction with environment- play a role in susceptibility and resistance to the detrimental effects in utero alcohol exposure.
The experiment Downing and his colleagues took incorporated 5 inbred strains of mice where they were given maltose-dextrin during pregnancy and was placed under different environments. After the examination of fetuses, it was found that some deficits, mainly malformations, were found with the newborns.
"In other words, said Downing, "certain strains were sensitive to some effects of prenatal alcohol and resistant to others. The fact that inbred strains differed showed that genetics plays a role."
As a result Downing suggested that these findings can be extrapolated to humans, since the human and mice genomes are so similar and the experiment shows us that genetic effects on prenatal alcohol phenotypes in mice has been produced, therefore suggesting genetics plays a role in humans as well.
REFERENCES: “Genetics Can Mediate Vulnerability To Alcohol's Effects During Pregnancy”, ScienceDaily (Apr. 22, 2009), viewed 26 April 2009, <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090422175142.htm>
by David (Yu-Kai) Huang.
student no. 42056593
