Although drinking during pregnancy has long been considered taboo, new research suggests that as many as one in 20 U.S. children may have health or behavioral problems related to alcohol exposure before birth.
The study found that between 2.4 percent and 4.8 percent of children have some kind of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD.
"Knowing not to drink during pregnancy and not doing so are two different things," especially before a woman knows she is pregnant, said lead researcher Philip May, a professor of public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He said the high prevalence of children affected by drinking during pregnancy may be due to social pressures or women's difficulty in changing their drinking habits.
[For more of this story, written by Tara Haelle, go to http://consumer.healthday.com/...dy-finds-693044.html]
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