The effects of low to moderate alcohol consumption and binge drinking in early pregnancy on executive function in 5‐year‐old children

Abstract

Please cite this paper as: SkogerbøÅ, Kesmodel U, Wimberley T, Støvring H, Bertrand J, Landrø N, Mortensen E. The effects of low to moderate alcohol consumption and binge drinking in early pregnancy on executive function in 5‐year‐old children. BJOG 2012;119:1201–1210. Objective To examine the effects of low to moderate maternal alcohol consumption and binge drinking in early pregnancy on children’s executive functions at the age of 5 years. Design Follow‐up study. Setting Neuropsychological testing in four Danish cities 2003–2008. Population A cohort of 1628 women and their children sampled from the Danish National Birth Cohort. Methods Participants were sampled based on maternal alcohol drinking patterns during early pregnancy. When the children were 5 years old, the parent and teacher forms of the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) were completed by the mothers and a preschool teacher. Parental education, maternal IQ, prenatal maternal smoking, the child’s age at testing, and the child’s gender were considered core confounding factors. The full model also included maternal binge drinking or low to moderate alcohol consumption, maternal age, parity, maternal marital status, family home environment, postnatal parental smoking, pre‐pregnancy maternal body mass index (BMI), and the health status of the child. Main outcome measures The BRIEF parent and teacher forms. Results Adjusted for all potential confounding factors, no statistically significant associations between maternal low to moderate average weekly consumption and BRIEF index scores were observed. In adjusted analyses, binge drinking in gestational week 9 or later was significantly associated with elevated Behavioural Regulation Index parent scores (OR 2.04, 95% CI 0.33–3.76), and with the risk of high scores on the Metacognitive Index assessed by the teacher (OR 2.06, 95% CI 1.01–4.23). Conclusions This study did not observe significant effects of low to moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy on executive functioning at the age of 5 years. Furthermore, only weak and no consistent associations between maternal binge drinking and executive functions were observed.

Smoking and alcohol drinking during pregnancy as the risk factors for poor child neurodevelopment – A review of epidemiological studies

“…Multivariate analysis showed no statistically significant effects of average weekly alcohol consumption, either individually or in combination on child's intelligence, attention and executive function [36]. These results replicate findings from separate analyses of alcohol consumption on child's intelligence, attention and executive function [31,35]. In summary, more compelling and stronger evidence is needed to evaluate the effect of low-to-moderate levels drinking during pregnancy.…”

“…A Taiwanese cohort study reported a negative association between cotinine levels and 2-year child neurodevelopment assessed by developmental quotients of the whole test and cognitive, language, fine motor and social subtests of the Comprehensive and measures of self-control [33]. Skogerbøet al (2012) did not observe significant effects of low and moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy on executive functioning at 5 years of age among children from the Danish National Birth Cohort [31]. The next group of the studies is associated with the children IQ measures.…”

“…Also, in the prospective cohort study (UK Millennium Cohort Study), children born to mothers who drank up to 1-2 drinks per week during pregnancy were not at increased risk of clinically relevant behavioral difficulties or cognitive deficits at 5 years of age [30]. One study assesses the low and moderate alcohol consumption and executive functioning in children [31]. Executive functions are defined as higher-order psychological abilities involved in goal-oriented behavior under conscious control [32].…”

The effect of low to moderate prenatal alcohol exposure and binge drinking episodes on draw-a-person at age 5 years.

“…All rights reserved during pregnancy) and neurodevelopmental outcomes among their 5-year-old children. Previous analyses from this dataset have been reported elsewhere for intelligence (Falgreen Eriksen et al, 2012;Kesmodel et al, 2012b), attention (Underbjerg et al, 2012), executive functioning (Skogerbø et al, 2012) and behavioral problems (Skogerbø et al, 2013). Findings indicated negative effects for children of women drinking 9 or more drinks per week.…”

Complete Issue Volume 32 Number 2

“…Executive functioning is a complicated construct that encompasses a series of cognitive processes such as planning (Kalberg & Buckley, 2007;Skogerbø et al, 2012), inhibition, working memory, and task switching (Davis, Gagnier, Moore, & Todorow, 2013). It also includes behavioral skills such as "sequencing behavior to efficiently achieve a goal" (Kalberg & Buckley, 2007, p.279), measures of self-control (Skogerbø, et al, 2012), and using stimulus-reward associations to serve the plan for problem solving (Davis et al, 2013). Overall, executive functioning has been recognized as a central deficit for individuals with FASD (Kodituwakku, 2009;Mattson, Riley, Gramling, Delis, & Jones, 1998;Rasmussen, 2005;).…”