Pregnancy and Drinking
First of all, let’s be clear. Drinking while pregnant can cause serious birth defects. In no way do I condone it. However, it does happen as evidenced by fetal alcohol syndrome affecting some 1 in 1000 children born in the US. In fact, 1 in 12 American women admit to drinking while pregnant! 1 in 30 admit to binge drinking! I really hope that’s not on purpose. Hopefully, it was before they found out.
Anyway, now that we’re clear that maternal drinking is bad, let’s take a quick look at this rather interesting study. It seems that some people actually have a gene mutation that protects the fetus against alcohol consumed by the mother. Some 20% of African-American children are born to mothers with this particular mutation, which means that they are better protected against their mother’s drinking while pregnant.
Also, further research shows that Vitamin B3, nicotinamide, could reverse the brain defects caused by drinking while pregnant. Of course, this is so far only true in mice.
