Offspring of mothers who drink alcohol while pregnant are more likely to have alcohol problems in their youth. 14% of the children of heavy drinking mothers (compared to 4.5% of the children of mothers who drank little or not at all) were alcohol dependent by the age of 21.
This is the first study to show the impact of pregnant mothers' drinking on their children's later alcohol problems.

The study was conducted on a group of 433 young adults, observed from 1974 onwards, already during the pregnancy of their mothers. 80 % of the mothers in the study drank alcohol during pregnancy. One third of them drank heavily.