The dangers of drinking during pregnancy were underlined in the results of a new study reported on by the Wall Street Journal. The article talks about one result of the study: “For each drink consumed each day over the daily average [in the study of 1,000 women] in the second half of the first trimester, the women’s babies were 12% more likely to have a small head circumference, 16% more likely to have low birth weight and over 20% more likely to have a very thin upper lip or lack a vertical indentation between their noses and lips. While seemingly minor, those characteristics are typical of fetal alcohol syndrome, or FAS, and frequently presage cognitive and behavior problems later in life.”

It’s long been widely known that drinking during pregnancy carried danger, but this study shows clearly just how critical those dangers are. “”We found that there is no safe amount of alcohol to drink during pregnancy,” says lead author Haruna Sawada Feldman, a postdoctoral student at the University of California, San Diego.”

Read the full article by clicking HERE.

Could it be that alcohol affects women differently than men? If so, what implications does that have for treatment? That’s the issue discussed in a recent Scientific American article.

It starts out: “Alcohol abuse does its neurological damage more quickly in women than in men, new research suggests. The finding adds to a growing body of evidence that is prompting researchers to consider whether the time is ripe for single-gender treatment programs for alcohol-dependent women and men.”

It goes on to state: “Over the past few decades scientists have observed a narrowing of the gender gap in alcohol dependence. In the 1980s the ratio of male to female alcohol dependence stood at roughly five males for every female, according to figures compiled by Shelly Greenfield, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. By 2002 the “dependence difference” had dropped to about 2.5 men for every woman. But although the gender gap in dependence may be closing, differences in the ways men and women respond to alcohol are emerging. ”

See the entire article HERE