The relationship between obstetrical outcomes and alcohol use in the year prior to pregnancy.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine problems related to alcohol use as reported covering the year prior to pregnancy in a general prenatal care seeking sample. The relationship of alcohol use to a number of pregnancy and birth complications (premature rupture of membrane, birthweight, weeks gestation and APGAR) was examined.


METHODS
A total of 940 prenatal care-seeking women completed the TWEAK, a brief measure of alcohol use problems during the previous year. Measures were completed by women at an average of 25 weeks gestation (SD = 9.7) in the waiting areas of university-affiliated obstetrics clinics in the US. Pregnancy and birth complications were gathered via medical record search and completed on all cases.


RESULTS
Controlling for cigarette use and key demographic variables, only pre-pregnancy elevated TWEAK (> or =2) was significantly and consistently related to each obstetrical outcome in multivariate analyses in the total sample. Analyses showed that pre-pregnancy TWEAK was related to PROM and lower birthweight among the sample of women (n = 800) who reported no actual alcohol use during pregnancy.


CONCLUSIONS
Results suggest that a brief screening for alcohol use problems may detect women either in early pregnancy or pre-conceptually, that may be at risk for potentially harmful pregnancy and birth outcomes, including women who deny prenatal alcohol use.
Flynn
Heather A
HA
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108, USA. hflynn@umich.edu
Berman
Deborah
D
Marcus
Sheila M
SM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D011295:Prenatal Care; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires