The effect of alcohol binge drinking in early pregnancy on general intelligence in children.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of binge alcohol consumption during early pregnancy, including the number of binge episodes and the timing of binge drinking, on general intelligence in 5-year-old children. DESIGN: Follow-up study. SETTING: Neuropsychological testing in four Danish cities 2003-2008. POPULATION: A cohort of 1617 women and their children sampled from the Danish National Birth Cohort. METHODS: Participants were sampled on the basis of maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy. At 5 years of age the children were tested with six subtests from the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence - Revised (WPPSI-R). Parental education, maternal IQ, prenatal maternal smoking, the child's age at testing, the gender of the child, and tester were considered core confounding factors, whereas the full model also controlled for prenatal maternal average alcohol intake, maternal age, maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), parity, home environment, postnatal parental smoking, health status, and indicators for hearing and vision impairment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: WPPSI-R. RESULTS: There were no systematic or significant differences in general intelligence between children of mothers reporting binge drinking and children of mothers with no binge episodes, except that binge drinking in gestational weeks 1-2 significantly reduced the risk of low, full-scale IQ (OR 0.54; 95% CI 0.31-0.96) when adjusted for core confounding factors. The results were otherwise not statistically significantly related to the number of binge episodes (with a maximum of 12) and timing of binge drinking. CONCLUSIONS: We found no systematic association between binge drinking during early pregnancy and child intelligence. However, binge drinking reduced the risk of low, full-scale IQ in gestational weeks 1-2. This finding may be explained by residual confounding.

The effects of low to moderate alcohol consumption and binge drinking in early pregnancy on selective and sustained attention in 5-year-old children.

OBJECTIVE: The aim was to examine the effects of low to moderate maternal alcohol consumption and binge drinking in early pregnancy on children's attention at 5 years of age. DESIGN: Prospective follow-up study. SETTING: Neuropsychological testing in four Danish cities 2003-2008. POPULATION: A cohort of 1628 women and their children sampled from the Danish National Birth Cohort. METHODS: Participants were sampled based on maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy. At 5 years of age, the children were tested with the recently developed Test of Everyday Attention for Children at Five (TEACh-5). Parental education, maternal IQ, maternal smoking in pregnancy, the child's age at testing, gender, and tester were considered core confounding factors, whereas the full model also controlled the following potential confounding factors: maternal binge drinking or low to moderate alcohol consumption, age, body mass index (BMI), parity, home environment, postnatal smoking in the home, child's health status, and indicators for hearing and vision impairments. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: TEACh-5 attention scores. RESULTS: There were no significant effects on test performance in children of mothers drinking up to 8 drinks per week compared with children of mothers who abstained, but there was a significant association between maternal consumption of 9 or more drinks per week and risk of a low overall attention score (OR 3.50, 95% CI 1.15-10.68). No consistent or significant associations were observed between binge drinking and attention test scores. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest an effect of maternal consumption of 9 or more drinks per week on attention functions in children, but the study detected no effects of lower levels of maternal consumption and no consistent effects of maternal binge drinking.