What can drinking do to a baby’s face?

Common changes in facial features can include a turned-up nose tip, shortened nose, turned-out chin, and turned-in lower eyelid. Health-related symptoms include cognitive impairment, ADHD, learning difficulties, memory problems, behavioural problems, and speech and language delays.

More than 5,000 children were examined.

In the new study, photos of more than 3,000 9-year-olds and nearly 2,500 13-year-olds were evaluated with an artificial intelligence algorithm that identifies 200 different spots on their faces. In addition, the mothers were asked how much alcohol they consumed during and just before pregnancy.

On the other hand, mothers who did not drink for three months before becoming pregnant or at any point before the birth of their child were included in the study as the control group. This group was then compared to women who consumed alcohol before becoming pregnant but quit while pregnant and women who drank alcohol throughout their pregnancy.

Professor at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. Dr Gennady Roshchupkin said, “For this study, we developed an AI-based algorithm that takes high-resolution 3D images of the face and generates 200 unique measurements or features. We analyzed these to investigate associations with prenatal alcohol exposure and show specific facial features associated with maternal alcohol consumption. In addition, we developed heatmaps for this.”

The team found that even women who drank less than 12 grams of alcohol per week (equivalent to a 330ml glass of beer or 175ml glass of wine) three months before pregnancy had babies with slightly altered faces. Prof. Dr Roshchupkin said there was a significant association between this small alcohol intake before pregnancy and facial changes.

 On the other hand, the study found that children exposed to alcohol in the womb are likelier to have an upturned nose, a shortened nose, a raised chin, and an inward-turned lower eyelid region.

“We found a statistically significant association between prenatal alcohol exposure and face shape in the nine-year-old children. The more alcohol the mothers drank, the more statistically significant changes there were. The most common traits were turned-up nose tip, shortened nose, turned-out chin and turned-in lower eyelid,” says study first author and PhD student Xianjing Liu, part of the group that developed the AI algorithm, in a media release.  

“Among the group of mothers who drank throughout pregnancy, we found that even if mothers drank very little during pregnancy, less than 12 g a week, the association between alcohol exposure and children’s facial shape could be observed. This is the first time an association has been shown at such low levels of alcohol consumption.”

“I would call the face a ‘health mirror’ as it reflects a child’s overall health. So, for example, a child’s exposure to alcohol before birth can have significant adverse effects on its healthy development. Suppose a mother regularly drinks a large amount. In that case, this can result in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, FASD, which is reflected in children’s faces,” adds Gennady Roshchupkin, assistant professor and leader of the computational population biology group at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands.

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The team notes that their study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, cannot definitively prove that alcohol consumption causes changes in face shape, only that it is associated.

The findings of the study were published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction.