Just when you thought that pre-natal exposure to alcohol couldn't cause any more problems, comes this: A new study that suggests that it could predispose children to become alcoholics.

The new research comes courtesy of the State University of New York system, specifically its SUNY Upstate Developmental Exposure Alcohol Research Center in Syracuse. Steven Youngentob, a professor of neuroscience and physiology, and his team found that rats exposed to alcohol in the womb learn to like its taste and smell, and will drink more of it later on than rats who were not exposed in utero.

The rats were studied at 15 days old, infancy, 90 days after birth and fully mature, and, beginning as pups--the equivalent of a human teenager--given a variety of ways to ingest the alcohol. Those that had been exposed to alcohol in utero drank, and at rates far higher than rats that had not been exposed to alcohol pre-natally.

"The hypothesis was that there are these neuroadaptive changes that essentially make the ethanol [alcohol] smell and taste better to the animal," Youngentob told the newswire HealthDay News. "So, the animal, because of the fetal exposure, has 'learned' that ethanol is something that's good to eat.".

Sounds pretty grim, but there was a glimmer of good news in the findings. Youngentob found that if the rats were kept away from alcohol until adulthood, they did not become alcoholics. That, he said in a press release from SUNY, was a clear message about prevention: "Keep kids away from alcohol, especially those that had fetal exposure."

Even if you are not yet the parent of a teenager, I'm willing to bet that you have an idea of how hard that will be. Tell a child "No" and they are likely to just the opposite.

I don't know how much alcohol either of the children I adopted from Russia were exposed to in utero. But, even before this study, I had decided to err on the side of safety and tell them that there was a chance that they are allergic to alcohol. They understand, because of current health issues, how nasty allergies can be and that it is a good thing to avoid them. I also have banned, because of previous studies linking excess sugar consumption to the onset of alcoholism, all foods containing high fructose corn syrup from the house. I am going to hope that that these steps, combined with an understanding of the place of a moderate consumption of alcohol, will keep them safe. But I would love to hear what steps the rest of you have taken to safeguard your kids.

To learn more about Youngentob's study, click here.

Image credit: designervoodoo, Morguefile.com