Psychosocial interventions for women enrolled in alcohol treatment during pregnancy

Pregnancy can be seen as a window of opportunity where women may seek treatment for their addictions out of concern for their unborn child. Worldwide estimates of alcohol usage report that a large proportion of women continue to drink during their pregnancy. Light alcohol consumption has not been associated with adverse effects on a woman's baby, while excessive consumption of alcohol has been shown to cause a number of birth defects as well as foetal alcohol syndrome. Alcohol consumption during pregnancy is the most widely recognized cause of severe mental and developmental delay in the baby. Therefore pregnancy is an important point in time to treat women for their alcohol dependence. This review sought to find all trials which compared any psychosocial intervention to other treatment or no treatment for pregnant or postpartum women in alcohol treatment. No articles were found which fit our inclusion criteria; most trials assessed psychosocial interventions to reduce alcohol consumption in pregnant or reproductive age women, not pregnant or post-partum women in alcohol treatment. We defined alcohol treatment as when the authors stated the women were in alcohol treatment or any validated psychosocial intervention for the treatment of alcohol dependence. Control trials need to be performed on this population of women to determine the most effective therapy for pregnant women seeking treatment for their alcohol dependence.