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New research in animals suggests that the sins of the mother won't inevitably be visited on the child. Even if a pregnant woman drinks heavily -- despite 25 years of warnings not to -- it may be possible to offset some of the alcohol's toxic effects on her baby's brain after she gives birth.

In newborn rats that were fed alcohol to simulate a binge- drinking mother, the alcohol did less damage to memory functions and behaviour if the infant rats were given supplements of choline, a nutrient found naturally in such foods as eggs and liver, researchers reported last week in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience....

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While this is a study only in rats, it was deemed worthy of examination. The story mentions that the treatment in question, choline, is added to various foods and therefore implicitly states that it is currently available. The story was somewhat sparse on the evidence, and the measurement of benefits or risks, even in the rodent population. It mentions that the treatment is 'extremely safe' but we get nothing further than that.
We scored the Quantification of benefits and Quantification of harms as not applicable because as the story states it has not been tested in humans and therefore this information is not available
We await reports of the testing of choline in humans.

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