Two Generations of Maternal Alcohol Consumption in Mice: Effect on Pregnancy Outcome

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Abstract
This study investigated whether female offspring of alcohol-treated mothers are, themselves, more or less susceptible than control offspring to the deleterious effects of alcohol on the outcome of their own pregnancy. One group of pregnant C57BL mice was fed a liquid diet containing 25% ethanol-derived calories (EDC) and another group was pair-fed an isocaloric (0% EDC) control diet. A third group was fed lab chow ad libitum (LC). The female offspring resulting from those matings were subsequently mated upon reaching 90 days of age. These pregnant mice were then separated into three prenatal treatments (25% EDC, 0% EDC, and LC). On gestation-day 19, second generation fetuses were removed by cesarean section, weighed, and sexed. Results indicated that number of implants, live births, and percent prenatal mortality did not differ between groups. However, fetal weight was lower in groups prenatally exposed to ethanol than in controls, regardless of the prenatal history of the mothers, themselves. More importantly, the data suggest that offspring of alcohol-treated mothers who do not consume alcohol themselves during their own pregnancy may still have a tendency to have offspring of lower birth weight. On the other hand, if mothers prenatally exposed to alcohol do consume alcohol during their own pregnancy, the impact of fetal weight suppression is even greater than expected for in utero alcohol exposure alone. These effects may be due to the fact that mothers who were prenatally exposed to alcohol weighed less than controls at the time of becoming pregnant. As such, these data imply an increased risk for low birth weight offspring in children of alcoholic mothers who drink during their own pregnancy.