Erik von Elm PLoS Medicine now encourages translations in languages other than English; this decision can only be welcomed. German-speaking readers are pleased by the novelty of a PLoS title written in their language. The Editorial starts with the fi rst line of the well-known German poem “Lorelei” by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) [1]. This year commemorates the 150th anniversary of his death. Ori...

The term Fetal Alcohol Syndrome [5] (FAS) was first published in a 1973 article in the British medical journal The Lancet. In that article, a group of pediatricians and psychiatrists at the University of Washington Medical School helped to define the morphological defects and developmental delays that can affect children born to alcoholic mothers. Those observations include preand post-natal gr...

Eight children with the fetal alcohol syndrome are described with ocular anomalies. They all had a strong history of maternal alcohol abuse throughout pregnancy, especially in the first trimester. All the children had eye abnormalities. These included external eye lesions, Peters' anomaly, lens opacification, ocular motility disorders, and optic nerve hypoplasia. Fetal alcohol syndrome is chara...

Des chercheurs ont conclu que le syndrome d’alcoolisme ftal et les effets de l’alcool sur le ftus (SAF/EAF) ont atteint des proportions épidémiques dans une réserve des premières nations du Manitoba. L’étude a été lancée après que des enseignants se soient plaints que la moitié des enfants de la réserve étaient incapables d’apprendre. Même si l’étude a porté avant tout sur des enfants autochton...

INTRODUCTION Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a large and rapidly increasing public health problem. The prevalence of FAS in the United States has been reported as 1-3 per 1000 live births and the rate of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) as 9.1 per 1000 live births [1]. Prevalence studies completed in the United States have suggested estimates of FAS among chronically alcoholic woman of 2...

Heavy maternal use of alcohol during pregnancy can cause permanent birth defects, including fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Although these alcohol-related defects are entirely preventable, the factors associated with maternal use of alcohol during pregnancy are complex and often resistant to change. In addition, not all women who drink heavily will produce children with FAS. Although targeting pr...

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a set of birth defects caused by maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. At birth, children with FAS can be recognized by growth deficiency and a characteristic set of minor facial traits that tend to become more normal as the child matures. Less evident at birth—but far more devastating to FAS children and their families—are the lifelong effects of alc...

Epidemiological and clinical data indicate that alcohol consumption during pregnancy remains a substantial public-health problem as many pregnant women continue to drink alcohol despite clinical recommendations and public health campaigns warning about the risks associated. It is well known that maternal ethanol consumption during pregnancy results in deleterious effects on the developing fetus...

Prenatal exposure to beverage alcohol is a major cause of mild mental retardation and developmental delay. In nonendangered alcohol-preferring vervet monkeys, we modeled the most common nondysmorphic form of fetal alcohol syndrome disorder with voluntary drinking during the third trimester of pregnancy. Here, we report significant numerical reductions in the principal hippocampal neurons of fet...