Alcohol and narcotics. Epidemiology and pregnancy risks

Among alcohol and narcotics, alcohol is most comprehensively documented as a teratogen. However, for all other narcotics, data are continuously accumulating, convincingly displaying the teratogenic effects. The proportions between "somatic" teratogenicity and "behavioral" teratogenicity vary between the different agents. Preventive work in prenatal clinics and among social workers, as well as objective mass media attention to the problem, seems to have lowered the incidence of severe fetal alcohol syndrome where the above-mentioned activities have been practiced. The female alcohol consumption in Sweden decreased from 1976 to 1985; thereafter, a slow continuous increase is underway again. In Sweden the number of recruits to narcotic abuse peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s. Thereafter, the number of recruits among females decreased, but abuse has continued among the members of the older age groups.