Mums-to-be warned there’s NO safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant
Scientists have long said that boozing can cause foetal alcohol spectrum disorder - which can lead to a number of issues
MUMS-to-be are warned there is no safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant.
New research has found that those exposed to alcohol in the womb were more likely to have impaired cognitive issues.
Scientists have long said that boozing can cause foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) - which can include mental, behaviour and learning problems, as well as physical disabilities.
In this latest study, an international team collected data from 19 teenagers known to have prenatal alcohol exposure and 21 healthy teens.
They used an imaging technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) to look at brain signals and then analysed them using a technique known as Chaos theory.
The findings, published in the by the American Institute of Physics, revealed that subjects whose mothers had consumed alcohol during their pregnancy had impaired connectivity in several areas of the brain.
Problems in these areas are reported in people with schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, autism and depression.
Lin Gao, who co-authored the research, said: "This work presents major evidence that children exposed to alcohol prenatally are at risk of suffering from impaired cognitive abilities and other secondary factors.
"Our study ... shows that there is no safe amount or safe stages during pregnancy for alcohol consumption."
The study marks one of the first times researchers have been able to quantify the effects of alcohol exposure on the developing brain.
Previous attempts have been hampered by complicated MEG data, which makes it difficult to draw some sort of conclusion.
But this team developed their own sophisticated technique called Cortical Start Spatio-Temporal mutlidipole analysis which could identify areas of the brain which were active when subjects were in the MEG machine.
A study in 2017 found that four in 10 mums in Britain drink during pregnancy.
It put the UK among the top five countries worldwide.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.