International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Mothers who drink alcohol while pregnant may have a damaging effect on their sons' fertility, according to new research.

A study conducted at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and presented at the 26th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome, Italy, highlighted that if mothers drink 4.5 or more drinks a week while pregnant their sons' sperm concentration will be a third lower in comparison to men whose mothers did not drink.

The researchers defined a drink as 12 grams of alcohol, or one 330ml beer, one small glass of wine or one 40ml glass of spirits.

It was also found that paternal drinking did not affect their offspring's semen count.

Dr Cecilia Ramlau-Hansen, senior researcher at the Department of Occupational Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, said the findings were "not surprising".

"If further research shows that maternal alcohol consumption is a cause of reduced semen concentration in male offspring, then we are a bit closer to an explanation of why semen quality may have decreased during the last decades and why it differs between populations," she added.

Earlier this year, research conducted at Queen's Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh, UK, found that women who are obese or smoke during pregnancy could lower their sons' sperm count.

Posted by Paul Robertson