Dysregulation of cardiac autonomic function in offspring exposed to alcohol during antenatal period

• Heart rate variability in offsprings who were exposed alcohol in the antenatal period were studied.
• Sympathetic predominance was noted in children who were exposed to alcohol in the antenatal period.
• We provide evidence for the deleterious long lasting effect of antenatal exposure of alcohol.

Several lines of investigations have shown the deleterious effect of an alcohol on the autonomic nervous system. Recent evidence shows that infants exposed to alcohol during the antenatal period displayed aberration in the cardiac autonomic function after the birth. However, there is dearth of literature on the long term influence of antenatal alcohol exposure. In this study we measured the cardiac autonomic functions in children who were exposed to alcohol in the antenatal period and compared them with non-exposed control children. Twenty eight children (age: 9 ± 2 years) in the antenatal alcohol exposed group and age, gender matched 30 non exposed healthy volunteers as a control (age: 10 ± 2 years) were recruited. Electrocardiogram was recorded in all subjects at rest in the supine position. HRV parameters were analyzed in the time and frequency domains using customized software. The average heart rate was similar between both the groups. There was no statistical significant difference in the time domain measures between the groups. However, the low frequency power, normalized units and low frequency to high frequency ratio were significantly higher in the antenatal alcohol exposed children compared to the controls. This suggests sympathetic predominance in children who were exposed to alcohol in the antenatal period. In this study we provide evidence for the deleterious long lasting effect of antenatal exposure of alcohol on cardiac autonomic regulation. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm the causal relationship between antenatal alcohol exposure and autonomic dysregulation.