Pregnant Mothers Can Alter Their Children’s Sense of Smell

The relation between alcoholism and a baby’s exposure to alcohol while still in the womb has long been established. Now, a new research comes to show just how exactly this comes to happen, by defining the relation between a mother’s consumption of alcohol and the way it alters a baby’s sense of smell.  

Researchers from the State University of New York have come to the conclusion that a mother’s diet alters her unborn baby’s sense of smell. This way, if she exposes her child to alcohol while still in the womb, chances are the child will grow to become a teenage drinker, as he will be attracted to booze he smells on the breath of other teens.

Early exposure, scientists say, could “worsen the consequences of alcohol related social interaction by increasing teenagers’ propensity to engage in such settings.” Of course, this is not a given fact as of now, further investigation pending since the initial research was performed on rats.

Be that as it may, researchers noted that adolescent rats behaved abnormally when in the presence of other adolescent rats whose breath smelled of alcohol, in that they were attracted to them in a way that couldn’t have been explained otherwise. Even if more studies are in order to establish how alcohol acts on the sense of smell of the unborn offspring, researchers believe that what they’ve got so far is of relevance to humans as well.

Researcher Steven Youngentob, for instance, said that such a link was “essential to the progressive development of alcohol abuse.” The recent findings come to push back the timeline for a child being exposed to alcohol, which results in an increase of his chances of becoming a heavy drinker. Earlier studies showed that a taste of alcohol before the age of 15 seriously boosts the teen’s chances of becoming an alcoholic.