“A study of more than 6,000 first-graders across four U.S. communities has found that a significant number of the children have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), with conservative rates ranging from 1 to 5 percent in community samples. The new findings represent more accurate prevalence estimates of FASD among general U.S. communities than prior research. Previous FASD estimates were based on smaller study populations and did not reflect the overall U.S. population. The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health.”

In their study of 84 twin/sibling pairs, researchers found that exposure to the same levels of alcohol can produce different neurological and functional effects.

BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published five papers from the Lifestyle During Pregnancy Study which examined three specific neurodevelopmental outcomes in five-year-old children whose mothers reported drinking low to moderate amounts of alcohol during pregnancy.

The journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research has published a meta-analysis of multiple studies examining how drinking patterns of women during pregnancy can affect the development of their children.

Report to help providers care for children with neurobehavioral disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure.

Dr Hoyme was the first author of the original diagnostic guidelines for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) published in Pediatrics in 2005.

“Although research showed the clinical benefits of nutritional interventions, a minimum number of studies refer to postnatal nutrition treatment of neurodevelopmental deficits. Nutritional supplementation in children with FASD has a dual objective: to overcome nutritional deficiencies and to reverse or improve the cognitive deleterious effects of prenatal alcohol exposure.”

June 30, 2017. A new study reveals that children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) show a striking developmental delay in their understanding of emotions. Even in those children with an average IQ, researchers found that their emotional understanding was lagging by two to five years behind their typically developing peers.