Effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on growth and development in rats.

Pregnant rats were intubated daily throughout gestation with 4.0 or 6.0 g/kg of ethanol. Pair-fed vehicle-treated, and nontreated rats fed ad libitum served as controls. All pups were removed from their biological mothers at birth and were raised by non-drug-treated surrogate mothers. Ethanol treatment reduced food and water consumption and body weight of pregnant animals relative to nontreated controls. Litter weight but not litter size was reduced in alcohol-treated groups. Pups exposed to the lower dosage regimen exhibited postnatal "catch up" growth, relative to ad libitum controls, but pups from the higher dosage group remained significantly lighter in weight than either their pair-fed controls or ad libitum animals. However, motor activity at 16 and 20 days of age was impaired in both alcohol-treated groups relative to their pair-fed controls. Both alcohol-treated groups also experienced greater postnatal mortality than did pair-fed or ad libitum controls. Since pair-fed animals did not differ from ad libitum controls, and all animals were raised by surrogate mothers, these results cannot be attributed to alcohol-related inhibition of maternal food and water consumption or postnatal maternal factors.