Pregnant drink binges harm kids' mental health

Conclusion This prospective cohort study has suggested that even occasional binge drinking in pregnancy may increase the risk of hyperactivity/inattention problems and lower academic performance when the children reach 11 years old. The strengths of the study are its design – selecting a wide and representative population sample collecting data prospectively – and using standardised questionnaires to assess the children’s outcomes. Assessing the impact of alcohol in pregnancy on children’s outcomes is difficult. This is partly because assessing alcohol consumption is always difficult. People may not want to report their true consumption, and even if they do, there are difficulties in accurately remembering past consumption. In addition, as this link can only be assessed by observational studies (ethically you couldn’t do a trial that randomised pregnant women to binge drink), it is always possible that additional factors are having an effect. The study found that women who had engaged in binge drinking in pregnancy were also more likely to have other unhealthy behaviours, such as smoking, and to be socioeconomically disadvantaged. The researchers tried to remove the effects of all of these factors, but this may not entirely remove the effect. This latest study carried out a large number of analyses looking at different outcomes. The differences identified were generally small, and they weren’t always large enough to be statistically significant after taking int...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Pregnancy/child Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news