Although information about the pregnancy outcome of alcoholic mothers is relatively abundant, no information is available about the effects of ethanol consumption on the infant's postnatal growth. This investigation aims to describe the physical growth of 32 infants born to mothers accustomed to drinking pulque, a mild alcoholic beverage, on a daily basis during pregnancy and lactation and to quantitate the ethanol disposed through the milk, as well as to identify cases of newborns with fetal alcohol syndrome. No full-blown cases of the syndrome were found: birth weight was similar to their non-drinking counterpart, but the relative risk of newborns to drinking mothers to have a low birth weight was 3.39. Ethanol found in milk accounted for 40 mg/day available to the infant. The postnatal growth of infants of ethanol drinkers was similar to that of controls. Further studies on their mental development are required in order to understand the extent of the effects of such a habit.
PIP: The physical growth of 32 infants born to mothers accustomed to drinking pulque, a mild alcoholic beverage, on a daily basis during pregnancy and lactation was studied. 110 clinically healthy mothers aged 15-44 years with parity from 2 to 4 were recruited during the last trimester of gestation from among the pregnant women of San Mateo Capulhuac, a village of 4000 inhabitants, where the prevalence of natural lactation is 95% up to 6 months postpartum. All were exclusively breast feeding their infants. The final sample included 94 nonsmoking mothers; of these, 32 drank 1-2 liters of pulque per day during pregnancy. A group of 62 nondrinking mothers of similar age, parity, and height for age ratio served as controls. 6 mothers received, .12-.31 gm/kg Blood and milk samples were taken at intervals up to 189 minutes after pulque had been consumed. Weight for age, weight for height, and height for age were calculated based on reference data published by the US National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The group of pulque-drinking mothers had an average age of 29.0 + 5.9 years, height of 151.0 + 5.0 cm while nondrinking mothers were 25.5 + 6.0 years and 149.0 + 5.2 cm, respectively. The estimated ethanol ingestion per day varied from 3.3 to 58 gm/day. No full-blown cases of the fetal alcohol syndrome were found: birth weight was similar to their nondrinking counterparts but the relative risk of newborns to drinking mothers to have a low birth weight was 3.39. Ethanol found in milk accounted for 40 mg/day available to the infant. Compared with the NCHS reference both groups had significantly lower mean length and weight from 3 months of age (p .001). This was reflected by a low percentage of infants with adequate weight and length/age ratios (47 and 58%, respectively). More than 90% ad an adequate weight/length ratio.