Diagnostic perspective of fetal alcohol and tobacco syndromes

Maldevelopment of the brain in offspring whose mothers drank and/or smoked during pregnancy was evaluated using Japanese data. The diagnostic criteria for fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or fetal alcohol effects (FAE) revealed that FAS infants exhibited a severer degree of CNS involvement than FAE infants. In addition to the criteria for fetal tobacco syndrome (FTS), we proposed the term "fetal tobacco effects (FTE)" for when the gestational age is less than 37 weeks. Maldevelopment of the brain was not severer in FTS than FTE, to which factors other than smoking causing a reduction in the gestational period, and ones during pregnancy and delivery may contribute. The effects on the CNS of alcohol were more frequent and severer than those of tobacco. CNS involvement was shown to increase with increasing consumption of alcohol or tobacco.