Moms Who Drink While Pregnant Give Their Kids a Taste For Alcohol
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It’s established that children of heavy drinkers are more likely to grow up and drink themselves. It’s usually considered to be because the children replicate what they see at home, but today a new study suggests that moms who drink while pregnant have babies who enjoy the taste of alcohol more.
In a rat study, baby rats born to rat moms who were given alcoholic drinks while pregnant preferred the taste of alcoholic drinks, and favored alcoholic drinks more than rat babies born to rat moms who were not given alcohol.
The effect seemed to be strongest in adolescent rats, and the authors of the study theorize that teenagers born to mothers who drank alcohol while pregnant are more at risk of drinking, because they will like the taste of alcoholic drinks more than teenagers whose mothers didn’t drink.
Children who have their first drink early in their lives are more likely to become alcoholics. Although I remember my mom letting me and my sister try (and spit out) red wine before we started school and neither of us have a drinking problem.
Alcoholic drinks are definitely an acquired taste. Who can forget how nasty their first drink tasted? Red wine is revolting if you are five. But many adults know how good a cold beer can be after spending the afternoon working in the yard, or a cosmopolitan on a mom’s night out, or a glass of wine after a hard day with a maniacal toddler.
So if something happens to an unborn baby whose mother drinks, to make them more attracted to alcoholic drinks, then once the baby is a teenager, they may acquire the taste more easily, and increase the potential of drinking problems as a teenager or adult.
