Fetal exposure to ethanol enhances pituitary-adrenal and temperature responses to ethanol in adult rats.

Long lasting effects of perinatal ethanol exposure were studied in adult rats who were the offspring of dams fed a 5.0% w/v ethanol-containing liquid diet ad libitum or pair-fed the isocaloric control diet during gestation weeks 2 and 3 or during postnatal week 1. Fetal exposure to ethanol reduced body weight of pups at birth unless the ethanol diet was supplemented with casein; neonatal exposure to the ethanol or pair-fed diets, casein supplemented or not, reduced pup weights until day 21 postnatally when weights of all fetally or neonatally exposed pups were normal. Between 52 and 120 days of age females were tested for pituitary-adrenal and temperature responses to a challenge dose of ethanol. Prenatally ethanol-exposed rats showed significantly higher plasma corticosterone titers and developed a greater hypothermia in response to an intraperitoneal injection of ethanol (0.75--1.5 g/kg) than did pair-fed controls. Similar responses enhancement did not occur in the postnatally ethanol-exposed rats. Temporal patterns of blood ethanol levels after an intraperitoneal injection of ethanol (1.5 g/kg) were similar in prenatally ethanol-exposed females and their pair-fed controls. The data indicate that exposure to ethanol in utero exerts persistent effects on the offspring, rendering them more responsive to the hypothermic and pituitary-adrenal activating effects of alcohol as adults.