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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Twin Pregnancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Ira J. Chasnoff
Ira J. Chasnoff*
Affiliation:
Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, Northwestern University Medical School, and Prentice Women's Hospital and Maternity Center, Chicago

Abstract

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In recent years, it has been realized that some infants of frankly alcoholic mothers escape the stigmata of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and others have only a few of the characteristics. These infants are thought to display fetal alcohol effects (FAE). The controversy regarding the amount of alcohol a woman can safely drink during pregnancy and the effects of timing and individual physiology on producing FAS vs FAE in the infant are important questions which can perhaps be partially answered through examining twin pregnancies and offspring. Data are presented regarding the long-term growth and development of a set of dizygotic twins, one with FAS and one with FAE, delivered to a mother who drank moderate amounts of alcohol during pregnancy. The variation in the degree of abnormality found in dizygotic twins exposed to similar amounts of alcohol at the same time during gestation indicates that differences in fetal susceptibility to ethanol dysmorphogenesis are of prime importance to the expression of the fetal alcohol syndrome.

Keywords

Fetal alcoholTwin pregnancyTeratogenesis
Type
Research Article
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 34 , Issue 3-4 , October 1985 , pp. 229 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1985

References

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