Last Update: 09/08/2006 Printer Friendly Printer Friendly   Email This Page Email This Page  

Prenatal Alcohol and SIDS and Stillbirth (PASS) Network

In 2003, the NICHD Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) began this Network to develop community-linked studies for investigating the role of prenatal alcohol exposure in the risk for SIDS and adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as stillbirth and fetal alcohol syndrome, and how they may be interrelated.

  The PASS Network includes two comprehensive clinical sites, a developmental biology and pathology center, and a data coordinating and analysis center.  Investigators will work collaboratively with the Branch and the NIAAA over a three-year period to plan and pilot multidisciplinary investigations, using common protocols, within communities at high risk for prenatal maternal alcohol consumption.

  The comprehensive clinical sites will be working with Northern Plains Indian communities and with populations in the Western Cape of South Africa.  In the long term, this initiative aims to decrease fetal and infant mortality and to improve child health in these communities.