Contents:
- Medical Video: Drinking any amount of alcohol during pregnancy can change the way babies' faces form, study finds
- Baby's face changes due to the mother drinking alcohol while pregnant
- Differences found through 3D photo analysis
- Alcohol in small amounts is not harmful to the womb, but use by pregnant women remains prohibited
Medical Video: Drinking any amount of alcohol during pregnancy can change the way babies' faces form, study finds
Drinking alcohol while pregnant is found as something that can affect the face of a baby in the womb. Some of these changes can include the baby's eyes, nose, chin and lips. But so far, changes caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy do not cause certain harm to the mother and baby.
Baby's face changes due to the mother drinking alcohol while pregnant
Researchers from Belgium and Australia assess an impact of alcohol drinking habits on 400 pregnant women. Researchers find the results of exposure to alcohol in the womb even though the alcohol content of these substances is subtly able to affect the development of the baby's face.
Reporting from New Scientist, the habit of drinking alcohol during pregnancy can trigger an alcohol syndrome in the fetus. The features of the appearance of his face are that the eye opening is small or narrow, the nose is not sharp or low in bone, and does not have a niche above the lips.
Adults later, children with these conditions are likely to have behavioral irregularities and low IQ problems. Consumption of alcohol with low levels when pregnant, too, also has the same effect on the development of the child's face and behavior later.
Differences found through 3D photo analysis
Jane Halliday, one of the researchers from Australia photographed the development of 415 baby faces when they were one year old. The photo was taken using a camera from various angles.
When the Halliday team unified the images using 3-dimensional software on the computer, they searched almost 70,000 points on each baby's face. There were found differences in mothers who consumed alcohol with mothers who did not consume alcohol while pregnant. Children of mothers who consume alcohol, their children's noses are shorter than the nose of children whose mothers do not drink alcohol.
Not only that, other differences still arise when taking into account other factors such as face shape, gender, and baby's weight. Worse yet, even if you consume only a low dose of alcohol, changes in the face of a baby in this cage will form within 7 weeks. But certainly, this change cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Alcohol in small amounts is not harmful to the womb, but use by pregnant women remains prohibited
The effect of the baby's face due to the mother who consumes alcohol may not last long. This is because the baby's face changes a lot in the first two years after he is born. There are even other factors that will be affected, for example child nutrition later.
Researchers also hope that 3D photography can someday help diagnose mild cases of alcohol disorders in infants. Worse yet, if a child shows a behavioral abnormality due to his mother consuming alcohol during pregnancy, this can provide evidence that alcohol exposure has a big effect not only on health conditions, but on the life of the big boy later.
Some doctors argue that small amounts of alcohol are not harmful to the womb. But still, experts and doctors forbid drinking alcohol while pregnant, for the safety of mothers and their own babies. This is because the safe alcohol limit is unknown. But one thing is certain, excessive alcohol consumption during pregnancy can cause defects in babies for example fetal alcohol syndrome.
