Drinking During Pregnancy Connected to Teenage Behavior Issues

It’s not news that drinking during pregnancy isn’t recommended – it’s already been linked to serious issues like fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as other physical and mental issues. But new research is showing there may be even more reasons not to drink while pregnant, that may not manifest until your child is in the teen years.

A study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh showed that women who drank alcohol during the first few months of their pregnancy had triple the likelihood of having their child experience behavioral problems in the teen years (known as “conduct disorder”), than those women who did not drink at all. The condition is marked by traits like persistent antisocial behavior and unruliness that can appear in adolescents up to the age of 16.

As with other alcohol-and-pregnancy-related issues, it’s not known exactly how much drinking increases the risk of these behavior issues – the study found that even women who had as little as one drink a day during early pregnancy experienced the problem.

There is still more research that needs to be done on the connection between drinking in the first trimester and behavior issues in the child, and the condition is actually still relatively rare, affecting only 12 percent of the population according to this recent study.

Other factors, such as heritability and environment, may also play a role in the development of behavior issues when coupled with drinking during pregnancy.

In the meantime, though the debate on whether drinking during pregnancy is acceptable (and if so, how much), the 2007 guideline from the Department of Health advising women to avoid drinking during pregnancy and when trying to get pregnant, is still considered sound.