A new study by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences shows that pregnant women who binge drink early in their pregnancy increase the likelihood that their babies will be born with oral clefts. In a national, population-based case-control study of infants born in 1996 through 2001 in Norway, researchers found that pregnant women who consumed an average of 5 or more drinks per sitting (binge-level drinking) were more than twice as likely than nondrinkers to have an infant with either of the 2 major infant oral clefts: cleft lip with or without cleft palate, or cleft palate alone. Women who drank at this level on 3 or more occasions during the first trimester were 3 times as likely to have infants born with oral clefts.

Alcohol is a recognized teratogen, an environmental agent that can cause malformations of an embryo or a fetus. One of the most severe outcomes of heavy maternal drinking is fetal alcohol syndrome, a lifelong condition that causes physical and mental disabilities, including craniofacial malformations. To date, there has been little research to determine whether alcohol consumption is related to oral cleft risk.

The causes of clefts are largely unknown, but both genetic predisposition and environmental factors are believed to play a role in their development. This research suggests that exposure to excessive amounts of alcohol during the first 3 months of pregnancy, when a facial differentiation takes place, could contribute to oral cleft development.

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