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Elena Armas
202105009

The Negative Impacts of Alcohol Use During Pregnancy

The development of the fetus is one of the most important parts for a human’s
development. As this time period is so crucial for a human life, we avoid subsenses that could
have negative impacts such as alcohol and drugs. When alcohol becomes a factor in the fetus’s
development, we see many negative impacts that affect the child’s development that can result in
issues for their entire life. These articles show different studies and experiments that support how
there is no positive impacts with alcohol use during pregnancy, and how there are only negative
impacts like birth defects and developmental disabilities. As I look into some articles, I can
support the statement that alcohol use during pregnancy is not safe for the developing fetus.
Substance abuse during pregnancy is an ongoing issue across the world where many
children are having problems in their life because of alcohol use during pregnancy. An article by
Behnke (2013) goes into detail about substance abuse with both alcohol and drugs. They touch
on important points throughout the article. Some of these examples being how alcohol has an
impact on the women carrying the children like toxic effects on the placenta, prostaglandin,
issues with nutrition, decrease in blood flow and etc. These problems result in issues during the
fetal growth period like decrease in size at birth, issues with breast feeding, intellectual
disability, memory problems, executive functioning skills, development of language, etc. The
researchers also studied children in school and saw that children who had exposure to alcohol
during the fetal development had problems with reading and math skills during their entire
school year (Behnke 2013). The information they provided in this article supports the idea that
alcohol is a negative impact on the development of a child.
According to Brown et al. (2019), Problems surrounding alcohol consumption during
pregnancy was first recognized during the mid-19th century. The temperance movement helped
bring attention to issues with child development which resulted in scientist paying more attention
to the problems from alcohol abuse. An important study was done in 1899 where they compared
mothers who consumed alcohol and mothers who did not, and they discovered that the placenta
was not a wall that blocked alcohol or “filter” it to the fetus. There were also multiple
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experiments done between 1903 to 1922 on animals that displayed how physical defects from
consuming alcohol. By the 1950 to 1960s alcohol abuse was taken even more seriously which
increased scientists to do more research on this topic (Brown et al., 2019)
Scientists have done many studies after realizing how serious it is to not consume alcohol
while being pregnant. According to Landgren et al. (2010), A study was performed where 71
children that were adopted from eastern Europe and were evaluated 5 years after their adoption.
After studying these children, the results showed that fetal alcohol syndrome was identified for
52% of the children studied and also found that 11% of these children had birth defects. 23% of
these children had mental problems and attention-deficit disorder. These scientists saw that
overall alcohol consumption during pregnancy has negative long-term effects like behavioural
and cognitive problems (Landgren et al., 2010)
Many experiments and research have shown that the consumption of alcohol during
pregnancy does have many negative impacts on the developing fetus. These problems including
physical and mental issues with the development of the child, some of these issues being
decrease in size at birth, memory difficulty, functioning skills and language difficulty. With
alcohol being bad for the human body, there are no benefits to consuming alcohol during
pregnancy. While pregnant women are told to avoid alcohol for their entire pregnancy because of
all the serious problems that can result from consuming alcohol. There is no know safe amount
or a safe time to drink during a pregnancy. A lot of these problems can result before a woman
even knows she is pregnant. After years of research and studies it proven that there are no
benefits to drinking alcohol and It only results in negative impacts like Fetal alcohol syndrome,
miscarriages and many more.
Ultimately research and studies have been evolving since the mid 19th centaury where the
problem was first brought to the world’s attention, with many years of work the issues became
more irrelevant. Many experiments on pregnant women and animals have helped scientist better
understand why it is so important to not consume alcohol during the entire pregnancy. If alcohol
is consumed during a pregnancy it can result in many issues involving physical defects and
mental problems. One of the biggest problems being fetal alcohol syndrome where a child faces
many issues for their entire life. Overall, there are no benefits to consuming alcohol during
pregnancy and alcohol does affect the developing fetus. As the development of the fetus is very
important, alcohol must be avoided for the baby to have a healthy future.
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References

Behnke et al (2013). Prenatal substance abuse: Short-and long-term effects on the exposed fetus.
Pediatrics, 131(3), e1009-e1024.

Brown, J. M., Bland, R., Jonsson, E., & Greenshaw, A. J. (2019). A Brief History of Awareness
of The Link Between Alcohol and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. The Canadian
Journal of Psychiatry, 64(3), 164-168. DOI: 10.1177/0706743718777403

Landgren, M., Svensson, L., Strömland, K., & Andersson Grönlund, M. (2010). Prenatal Alcohol
Exposure and Neurodevelopmental Disorders In Children Adopted From Eastern
Europe. Pediatrics, 125(5), e1178-e1185. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-0712.