Children of mothers who drink alcohol during pregnancy display more behavioural problems, predisposition to criminality and attention deficiency. This was the conclusion reached by American researchers who followed 8 621 children of 4 to 11 years of age and studied their behaviour as a function of drink consumption during pregnancy.

Compared with mothers who did not drink, behavioural problems were considerably more prevalent among the children of mothers who drank alcohol. However, the behavioural abnormalities appeared not to be any more frequent if the mothers drank regularly or drank regularly less.  According to the researchers this may be explained by consumption during pregnancy of other harmful substances connected with drinking during pregnancy. Hence the necessity, apart from avoiding alcohol during pregnancy, of trying to find the so-far-unknown environmental risk factors during pregnancy.

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