F. Bruder Stapleton, MD reviewing Popova S et al. Lancet 2016 Jan 5. Burd L. Lancet 2016 Jan 5.

The most common comorbidities are peripheral nervous disorders, conduct disorder, receptive language disorder, chronic serous otitis media, and expressive language disorder.

Maternal exposure to alcohol during pregnancy can cause damage to the fetus beyond morphological abnormalities, resulting in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), which includes fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), partial FAS, and alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorders. Investigators conducted a meta-analysis of 127 studies to determine comorbidities associated with alcohol exposure in pregnancy.

The five most prevalent conditions associated with FASD were peripheral nervous system abnormalities, conduct disorder, receptive language disorder, chronic serous otitis media, and expressive language disorder. Analysis of the 12 U.S. studies that reported prevalence of comorbidities showed that pooled prevalence was much higher in patients with FAS than in the general population — e.g., about 126 times higher for both sensory and conductive hearing loss, 97 for psychological disorders, 77 for chronic serous otitis media, 71 for blindness, and 31 for mild visual impairment.

Citation(s):

Popova S et al. Comorbidity of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet 2016 Jan 5; [e-pub].

Burd L.Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: Complexity from comorbidity. Lancet 2016 Jan 5; [e-pub]. 

JWatch