Alcohol in pregnancy affects three generations

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy, even in small amounts, can increase the odds of the next three generations developing alcoholism, new research suggests.

New research suggests drinking alcohol during pregnancy increases the risks of alcoholism in the next three generations

The study from Binghamton University, New York, is the first to analyse the effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy on generations that were not directly exposed to alcohol in the uterus during pregnancy.

Led by Nicole Cameron, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University, the scientists gave pregnant rats the equivalent of one glass of wine for four consecutive days, at gestational days 17-20 – the equivalent of the second trimester in humans.

The male and female offspring were then tested for water or alcohol consumptions.

Adolescent male offspring were then tested for sensitivity to alcohol by injecting them with a high-alcohol dose, which made them unresponsive – “drunk on their back”.

The researchers then recorded how long it took the rats to regain their senses and get back on four paws.

Trans-generational transmission of the effect of gestational ethanol exposure on ethanol use-related behaviour, as the study is called, was published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

“Our findings show that in the rate, when a mother consumes the equivalent of one glass of wine four times during that pregnancy, her offspring and grand-offspring, up to the third generation, show increased alcohol preference and less sensitivity to alcohol,” commented Nicole Cameron, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University.

“Thus, the offspring are more likely to develop alcoholism.

“This paper is the first to demonstrate trans-generational effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy on alcohol-related behaviour in offspring.”

The research team will continue their research, which is funded by a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant.

Cameron added: “We now need to identify how this effect is pass through multiple generations by investigating the effects alcohol has on the genome and epigenome (molecules that control gene translation.”