AI Predicts: A Little Alcohol is Enough to Modify Your Baby’s Face

The relationship between the altered facial features of the offspring of moms who consumed alcohol up to three months before getting pregnant but then quit is significant since the form of children's faces can indicate health and developmental issues (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Association between prenatal alcohol exposure and children's facial shape: a prospective population-based cohort study

Go to source). "I would term the face a 'health mirror,' as it reflects the general health of a child," said Gennady Roshchupkin, assistant professor and leader of the computational population biology group at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, who led the study.

"A child's prenatal alcohol intake can have a significant negative impact on its health development, and if a mother drinks heavily regularly, this can result in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD," which is visible on children's faces.

FASD is classified as a condition characterized by growth retardation, neurological dysfunction, and aberrant facial development. Cognitive impairment, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning challenges, memory problems, behavioral issues, and speech and language impairments are all symptoms.

FASD has previously been linked to a mother's drinking during pregnancy, particularly heavy drinking. Before now, however, little was known about the impact of minimal alcohol intake on children's facial development and, consequently, their health. This is also the first study to look at the question among young people of various ethnicities.

The researchers employed AI and deep learning to analyze three-dimensional photographs of youngsters aged nine (3149 children) and thirteen (2477 children). The children were participants in the Generation R Study in the Netherlands, an ongoing population-based research study of pregnant mothers and their children from infancy to childhood. This study's children were born between April 2009 and January 2006.

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How much Alcohol is Enough to Change the Facial Features of the Baby?

The altered facial shape was discovered even when moms consumed less than 12 g of alcohol each week—the equivalent of a small, 175-ml glass of wine or 330-ml bottle of beer.

"The face is a complex shape, and analyzing it is a challenging task. 3D imaging helps a lot, but it requires more advanced algorithms to do this," said Prof. Roshchupkin. "For this task, we developed an AI-based algorithm that takes high-resolution 3D images of the face and produces 200 unique measurements, or ‘traits’.”

"We analyzed these to search for associations with prenatal alcohol exposure, and we developed heat maps to display the particular facial features associated with the mother’s alcohol consumption."

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Study Design

Questionnaires completed by the women in early, midterm, and late pregnancy provided information on the mothers' alcohol usage.

The mothers were divided into three groups by the researchers: those who did not drink before or during pregnancy (the control group), those who drank for three months before becoming pregnant but stopped when they became pregnant; and those who drank during pregnancy, including those who only drank during the first trimester and those who continued to drink throughout pregnancy.

"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 a turned-up nose tip, a shortened nose, a turned-out chin, and a turned-in lower eyelid," said Mr. Xianjing Liu, the first author of the study and a Ph.D. student in Prof. Roshchupkin’s group, who developed the AI algorithm.

"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."

The link between alcohol use and face shape diminished in older children, and no significant association was discovered when the researchers examined data for 13-year-old youngsters.

"It is possible that as child ages and experiences other environmental factors, these changes may diminish or be obscured by normal growth patterns."

But that does not mean that alcohol's effect on health will also disappear. "As a result, it is critical to emphasize that there is no established safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and that it is recommended to stop drinking alcohol even before conception to ensure optimal health outcomes for both the mother and the developing fetus," Prof. Roshchupkin said."Further investigations on the mechanism of the association are needed to fully understand how the association develops and then weakens with age."

Researchers discovered statistically significant facial characteristics related to mothers' alcohol intake in nine-year-olds when they compared individuals who drank before pregnancy but quit when they became pregnant with those who maintained drinking throughout pregnancy.

They also examined data for women who drank throughout their first trimester but then quit, as well as those who continued to drink.

The results were consistent, indicating that the correlations were primarily explained by the fetus's exposure to alcohol during the first three months of pregnancy.

Previous studies of childhood development after prenatal alcohol exposure have suggested that possible mechanisms of action may be metabolic disorders in the mothers, such as problems with blood sugar levels and fatty liver disease, and that this could also explain the link with face shape, according to the researchers. Nonetheless, more research is required.

The vast number of children from many ethnic backgrounds is one of the study's strengths. There was no data on alcohol intake more than three months before pregnancy, and mothers may not have correctly completed the questionnaire on their drinking habits, potentially underestimating their consumption. Because this is an observational study, it cannot prove that alcohol use causes changes in facial shapes; it can only demonstrate that it does.

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To Conclude

There is no known safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy or while attempting to conceive. There is also no safe time to consume alcohol while pregnant. All types of alcohol, including wine and beer, are equally dangerous. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders can be avoided if a newborn is not exposed to alcohol before birth.

Reference:

1. Association between prenatal alcohol exposure and children's facial shape: a prospective population-based cohort study - (https://academic.oup.com/humrep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humrep/dead006/7035056)

Source-Medindia