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The effect of moderate gestational alcohol consumption during pregnancy on speech and language outcomes in children: a systematic review.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Consensus has not been reached on safe alcohol consumption recommendations during pregnancy. The National Institutes for Care and Health Excellence (NICE) in the UK suggest that one to two drinks not more than twice per week is safe. However, the speech and language effects of even low levels of alcohol use among offspring are unknown. The aim of this study was to review systematically the evidence on studies of the effect of low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption during pregnancy (up to 70 grams of alcohol per week) compared to abstinence on speech and language outcomes in children. METHODS: Using medical subject headings, PubMed, Web of knowledge, Scopus, Embase, Cinahl and the Cochrane Library were searched from their inception up to March 2012. Case control and cohort studies were included. Two assessors independently reviewed titles, abstracts and full articles, extracted data and assessed quality. RESULTS: A total of 1,397 titles and abstracts were reviewed of which 51 full texts were retrieved. Three cohort studies totaling 10,642 women met the inclusion criteria. All three studies, (United States (2) and Australia (1)) indicated that language was not impaired as a result of low to moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Two studies were judged to be of low quality based on a six-item bias classification tool. Due to heterogeneity, results could not be meta-analyzed. CONCLUSION: Studies included in this review do not provide sufficient evidence to confirm or refute an association between low to moderate alcohol use during pregnancy and speech and language outcomes in children. High quality, population based studies are required to establish the safety of low to moderate levels of alcohol use such as those set out by the NICE guidelines in the UK.

SUBMITTER: O'Keeffe LM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3892059 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The effect of moderate gestational alcohol consumption during pregnancy on speech and language outcomes in children: a systematic review.

O'Keeffe Linda M LM Greene Richard A RA Kearney Patricia M PM

Systematic reviews 20140102

<h4>Background</h4>Consensus has not been reached on safe alcohol consumption recommendations during pregnancy. The National Institutes for Care and Health Excellence (NICE) in the UK suggest that one to two drinks not more than twice per week is safe. However, the speech and language effects of even low levels of alcohol use among offspring are unknown. The aim of this study was to review systematically the evidence on studies of the effect of low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption durin ...[more]

PMID: 24383422

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Project description:Objectives To investigate whether moderate alcohol consumption has a favourable or adverse association or no association with brain structure and function.Design Observational cohort study with weekly alcohol intake and cognitive performance measured repeatedly over 30 years (1985-2015). Multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed at study endpoint (2012-15).Setting Community dwelling adults enrolled in the Whitehall II cohort based in the UK (the Whitehall II imaging substudy).Participants 550 men and women with mean age 43.0 (SD 5.4) at study baseline, none were "alcohol dependent" according to the CAGE screening questionnaire, and all safe to undergo MRI of the brain at follow-up. Twenty three were excluded because of incomplete or poor quality imaging data or gross structural abnormality (such as a brain cyst) or incomplete alcohol use, sociodemographic, health, or cognitive data.Main outcome measures Structural brain measures included hippocampal atrophy, grey matter density, and white matter microstructure. Functional measures included cognitive decline over the study and cross sectional cognitive performance at the time of scanning.Results Higher alcohol consumption over the 30 year follow-up was associated with increased odds of hippocampal atrophy in a dose dependent fashion. While those consuming over 30 units a week were at the highest risk compared with abstainers (odds ratio 5.8, 95% confidence interval 1.8 to 18.6; P?0.001), even those drinking moderately (14-21 units/week) had three times the odds of right sided hippocampal atrophy (3.4, 1.4 to 8.1; P=0.007). There was no protective effect of light drinking (1-<7 units/week) over abstinence. Higher alcohol use was also associated with differences in corpus callosum microstructure and faster decline in lexical fluency. No association was found with cross sectional cognitive performance or longitudinal changes in semantic fluency or word recall.Conclusions Alcohol consumption, even at moderate levels, is associated with adverse brain outcomes including hippocampal atrophy. These results support the recent reduction in alcohol guidance in the UK and question the current limits recommended in the US.

Dataset Information

The effect of moderate gestational alcohol consumption during pregnancy on speech and language outcomes in children: a systematic review.

Publications

The effect of moderate gestational alcohol consumption during pregnancy on speech and language outcomes in children: a systematic review.

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