You Didn't Drink During Pregnancy, Did You?

Area of Science:

• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Neuroscience
• Public Health

Background:

• Accurate characterization of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is challenging due to inconsistent screening and stigma.
• Underreporting of alcohol use during pregnancy is a significant concern.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify self-report tools that efficiently and accurately characterize PAE.
• To compare different questioning methods for assessing alcohol consumption in pregnant individuals.

Main Methods:

• Prospective recruitment of 121 participants into the University of New Mexico Ethanol, Neurodevelopment, Infant and Child Health cohort.
• Administration of Timeline Follow-back (TLFB) interviews to capture alcohol use, converting reported quantity to ounces of absolute alcohol (AA).
• Analysis of continuous alcohol use measures to determine binge episodes (≥4 drinks/occasion) and tabulation of prevalence for different assessment types.

Main Results:

• Average alcohol consumption was 0.6 oz AA/day (approximately 8.4 drinks/week).
• Binge episode prevalence varied significantly: 3.3% on TLFB, 19.8% for "special occasions," 52.1% for the most recent drinking episode, and 89.3% based on maximum drinks in 24 hours.

Conclusions:

• Self-reported alcohol quantity is highly dependent on the type of questions asked.
• Brief, targeted questions about maximum drinks in 24 hours and recent drinking episodes improve PAE estimation.
• These methods may be less affected by self-reporting bias, leading to more accurate PAE characterization.