Conclusions made by authors of included studies on maternal drinking behaviours and FASD
| Authors (year) | Original authors’ conclusions |
| Cannon and colleagues9 | ‘Mothers of children with FAS have severe substance abuse behaviors including daily drinking, binge drinking’. |
| Ceccanti and colleagues40 | ‘Mothers of children with a FASD reported more drinking three months prior to pregnancy, more current drinking, and endorsed questionnaire items indicating that solitary drinking was more common’. |
| Coyne and colleagues41 | ‘Mothers of children with FAS reported heavy alcohol intake during pregnancy’. |
| Davies and colleagues42 | ‘Twenty five mothers with a FASD diagnosed child (69%) reported drinking alcohol, on average, every week during their pregnancy’. |
| May and colleagues43 | ‘Most drinking is binge drinking. Even though the current drinking quantities reported by both subjects and controls were not high in absolute standards, the most important interpretation of the data is the large differential between subjects and controls. There is no doubt, however, that these mothers drank sufficiently to produce verifiable cases of fetal alcohol syndrome as severe as we have seen anywhere in the United States’. |
| May and colleagues44 | ‘Alcohol consumption was much greater for case mothers than for control mothers in all comparisons. Control mothers were more likely to have been abstainers or Light drinkers compared with case mothers, who showed significantly heavier drinking patterns and reported drinking at the same level (53%–55%)%) or higher during pregnancy (32%–34%)%) compared with current drinking levels’. |
| May and colleagues45 | ‘Measures of drinking during the index pregnancies are significantly associated with low intelligence and frequent behavioral problems in the children. Reported drinking during pregnancy (.59), drinks per day (.48), three drinks or more per occasion (.51), and five drinks or more per occasion (.45), correlate highly with total dysmorphology in the children’. |
| May and colleagues46 | ‘In most every variable of maternal alcohol use and abuse, a spectrum emerged based on the final diagnosis of the child with FAS, PFAS, and control. Alcohol use was greatest in quantity, frequency, and duration among the mothers of FAS children, and generally next most severe among mothers of PFAS children, while lowest among controls’. |
| May and colleagues47 | ‘Mothers of children with FASD report heavy current drinking and drinking during the s2nd and 3rd trimesters of the index pregnancy’. |
| May and colleagues48 | ‘Binge drinking of at least two days a week during all trimesters in this population may produce FAS or PFAS, while mothers of children with ARND and exposed children without an FASD are most likely to reduce their average and peak alcohol consumption in the later trimesters’. |
| May and colleagues49 | ‘Mean number of drinks per week and drinking 3 and 5 or more drinks per occasion during pregnancy both illustrate the significant difference between mothers of FASD children and those of normal children’. |
| May and colleagues50 | ‘Mothers of children who had a FASD reported more drinking 3 months before pregnancy, and heavy drinking by the father of children who had FASD’. |
| May and colleagues28 | ‘With patterns of heavy episodic (binge) drinking being the most harmful to the fetus’. |
| May and colleagues51 | ‘Outcomes, both physical and cognitive/behavioral, are especially poor among children who were exposed to the highest quantity and frequency of drinking, especially drinks per drinking day and three or more drinks per occasion in both the case control comparisons and the correlation analysis’. |
| Miller and colleagues52 | ‘Mothers of FAS cases were more likely to drink alcohol during pregnancy’. |
| O’Leary and colleagues53 | ‘Heavy PAE in the first trimester was associated with a more than fourfold increased risk of ARBDs. This association was specific to PAE in the first trimester. The finding of twofold increased odds of ARBDs after moderate levels of PAE during late pregnancy is likely because many women also had heavy first trimester exposure and reduced their alcohol intake as pregnancy progressed’. |
| Petković and Barišić54 | ‘Confirmed pregnancy alcohol consumption in the FAS/PFAS group was higher (18.2%) to observed frequency in the whole sample of questioned mothers (11.5%) and significantly higher when compared to non-FAS/PFAS mothers (10.4%)’. |
| Suttie and colleagues55 | ‘No differences were found for prenatal alcohol exposure between the HE subgroup with FAS/PFAS affinity (nonsyndromal heavy exposed with FAS/PFAS-like face signature [HE1]) versus theHE subgroup with control affinity (nonsyndromal heavy exposed with more control-like face signature [HE2]) (P<0.10)’. |
| Urban and colleagues56 | ‘Maternal drinking during pregnancy was much more frequently reported in mothers of children with FAS/PFAS than in controls’. |
| Viljoen and colleagues57 | ‘Mothers of children with FAS drank significantly heavier than controls, especially for continues drinking heavily (and/or increasing) throughout pregnancy. Control mothers drank less and drinking levels declined during pregnancy. Episodic drinking on weekends was modal for both groups with bingeing 5+drinks was normative during 2 constructive days for FAS mothers’. |
| Viljoen and colleagues58 | ‘Mothers of children with FAS drink more than controls, drink rapidly and drink heavily in an episodic fashion. Moreover, they do not quit or cut down during pregnancy’. |
FASD, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.