When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, so does her baby. That's the basic message of most campaigns designed to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), the leading known cause of mental retardation. But there's a growing awareness that these campaigns have to target another key audience as well: fathers who drink.

Children with FAS face a long list of potential symptoms -- lowered IQ, learning disabilities, growth deficiencies, organ dysfunction, impairments of the central nervous system, facial abnormalities, and more. According to the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, FAS and fetal alcohol effects (FAE), or a less severe set of FAS symptoms, are irreversible but 100 percent preventable.

Today we know that a mother's drinking during pregnancy is a direct cause of FAS. But the role a father's drinking plays in producing this syndrome is still an open question.

This question raises two issues. One is a matter of fact; the other is a matter of policy.

Unfortunately the facts are few. "There's not much hard data, though there's a lot of suggestive material," said Gladys Friedler, associate professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, Boston University School of Medicine.

Friedler and other researchers have demonstrated that exposing a male rat to alcohol can alter the growth, behavior, and reproductive functions of that animal's descendants. This is true even when the mother rat is free of alcohol and other drugs.

A 1994 study reported that male rats consuming alcohol had fewer offspring than alcohol-free rats. The offspring that did survive were smaller, experienced more behavioral and hormonal disturbances, and had lowered immunity to disease. Theodore Cicero, primary author of the study and a professor of neuropharmacology at Washington University School of Medicine, suggests that alcohol may have a direct and toxic effect on the male's sperm and sexual organs. "It seems clear," Cicero concluded, "that paternal, pregestational alcohol administration can produce adverse effects in the offspring."

Non-scientists may wonder how animal studies could possibly apply in predicting the effects of a father's drinking on human children. Friedler replied that, with a few exceptions, animal studies have led to many useful warnings about the potential toxic effects of chemicals. She also noted that ethical concerns make it nearly impossible to do comparable studies on humans.

The medical literature does include at least one human study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (June 19, 1986). Here researchers noted a relationship between fathers' drinking in the month before conception and the birth weight of their babies. Infants whose fathers drank regularly weighed an average of 6.3 ounces less than infants whose fathers were occasional drinkers. In the study, "regular drinking" was defined as consuming at least two drinks daily or consuming about five drinks or more on a single occasion at least once a month. Moreover, the researchers' statistical analysis confirms that "the father's drinking was significantly related to the infant's birth weight independently of the mother's alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use in any period."

Going beyond the statistics is a larger human dimension. Alcohol consumption is just one paternal behavior that can affect the life of a newborn.

"We can look at a wide range of behavior problems associated with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)," said Pi-Nian Chang, an assistant professor of pediatrics and psychology at the University of Minnesota. "Say, for example, that a child with FAS tends to be hyperactive. It could also very well be that the father had a history of hyperactivity. This could be associated with poor learning skills, a poor social environment, poor impulse control, and legal problems. All these could certainly have some impact on the child's future behavior. And all could be associated with drinking." In summary, we have few facts about the direct effects of a father's drinking on the health of his children. Yet we know enough to be wary.

This leads to the matter of policy: what potential parents can decide to do until science delivers definitive answers. The safest policy is for both men and women to abstain from alcohol and other drugs while they are trying to conceive a child. It's true that researchers disagree about how much alcohol a woman can safely consume at conception and during pregnancy. Even so, many women who want children choose to abstain completely. When men make the same decision, they not only create a supportive bond with their partners, they affirm their intention to bring a healthy child into the world.

Chang makes the same recommendation, not on the basis of biology but of psychology. Shared abstinence, he says, is one way for men and women to say, "We are going to commit to each other. We're going to have children. And for the childrens' sake we'll both give up drinking."

--Published May 11, 1998