Maternal alcohol consumption and oral clefts: a meta-analysis

Our aim was to evaluate the possible correlation between maternal alcohol consumption during the first trimester and the risk of having an offspring with non-syndromic oral cleft. We electronically searched all published papers from 1950 to 2019 about maternal alcohol consumption and oral clefts in PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) databases. Descriptive and quantitative data were extracted from eligible studies for systemic evaluation and meta-analysis. A total of 12 publications met our inclusion criteria, and nine of them presented sufficient data for quantitative analyses. The overall odds ratio of the nine reports was 1.00 (95% CI 0.87 to 1.15) for cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) and 1.02 (95% CI 0.92 to 1.14) for cleft palate only, indicating no significant difference between drinking and non-drinking mothers in the risk of having a child with a non-syndromic oral cleft. We found no confirmatory evidence for the presence of a dose-response relation between alcohol consumption and increase in the risk of oral cleft. Nevertheless, four of the studies enrolled found significantly increased risk of CL/P among mothers in the groups that consumed the most alcohol. All but one of the four studies suggested a positive correlation between binge drinking and the occurrence of non-syndromic oral cleft. Although we found no concrete correlation between mild alcohol consumption during pregnancy and the occurrence of non-syndromic oral cleft, precautions should still be taken to avoid binge drinking during the first trimester.