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Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy and fetal startle behaviour
Jennifer F Little1, Peter G Hepper, James C Dornan
1Fetal Behaviour Research Centre, School of Psychology, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland BT7 INN, UK.
Physiology & Behavior
|July 20, 2002
Abstract:
The startle behaviour of the fetus (both spontaneous and elicited) was examined in fetuses of mothers who drank alcohol and mothers who did not. Fetuses exposed to alcohol showed a higher frequency of spontaneous startles and were less likely to exhibit a normal startle in response to a vibroacoustic stimulus. These differences illustrate a teratogenic effect of alcohol on CNS functioning in utero, possibly associated with brainstem damage.