Armed with a $1 million federal grant, St. Louis University, will try to get 3,000 Missouri women to stop drinking alcohol while they are sexually active. The three-year study will determine if a four-month course convinces women from St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., to refrain from alcohol. The effort is aimed at reducing fetal alcohol syndrome, which affects up to 3 percent of live U.S. births. "Children over 12 years of age who have fetal alcohol syndrome develop an array of devastating problems that are layered upon their original organic brain damage," said lead researcher Mark Mengel. Problems include mental illness, trouble at school and with the law, sexual misconduct and addiction. While many pregnant women stop drinking, 60 percent do not know they are pregnant in the early months. The study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will use online or mailed exercises. Answers will be compared to a group of women in a similar four-month exercise to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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