Effects of maternal social drinking and smoking on offspring at 13 months.

The relationship between consumption of "social levels" of alcohol and nicotine in the prenatal period and the developmental performance of 84 offspring at 13 months was investigated. The Bayley Mental and Motor Scales were used as indices of infant development, and three clusters were derived to specifically measure verbal comprehension, spoken language and fine motor skills. Maternal alcohol consumption was associated with poorer performance on the Bayley Mental Scale, including a decrease in spoken language and verbal comprehension scores. Maternal smoking was found to be related to a decrease in Motor Scale scores, and to a decline in verbal comprehension and fine motor skills, after adjusting for the effects of confounding variables.