Nutrition Intervention as a Preventative Approach to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Despite known dangers of the teratogenic effects of alcohol on the fetus, resulting in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), alcohol consumption during gestation continues to be prevalent in Canada. Optimal maternal nutrition status during pregnancy plays a crucial role for healthy birth outcomes. Alcohol consumption disrupts nutrition utilization leading to primary and secondary malnutrition, by displacing macronutrient-derived calories for alcohol-derived calories and disturbing metabolic processes of macro- and micronutrients. Inadequate maternal nutrition leads to decreased maternal plasma volume expansion and poor placental perfusion, which consequently impedes access to nutrients from the mother to the fetus. This exacerbates alcohol’s teratogenic damage leading to a plethora of negative health outcomes for an infant and a mother. Thus, optimizing maternal nutrition status through an intervention or prevention is strategy paramount when prenatal alcohol consumption is reported or suspected. A number of reports on prenatal and postnatal nutrient supplementation provide promising evidence for the nutrition intervention as a prevention strategy to mitigate FASD outcomes. An overview of nutrients discussed in this chapter can be utilized as a basis for the development of targeted nutrition intervention for women at risk of carrying a child with FASD.