The strengths of this study include the comparison of effect sizes between two domains of literature using non-biased assumption-free statistical methods to provide a range of p-values. This study also highlights a major weakness of the two fields of research. Only 2 PAE studies ascertained whether or not the mother was AD, and did not exclude participants based on that information. Similarly, 5 COA studies assessed whether the mother drank while pregnant, yet only one excluded the participant if the mother drank more than a certain threshold while pregnant. This implies that noise and heterogeneity are introduced into the “control” samples in both domains. Very few studies have taken into account both the risk of alcohol dependence in mothers who drink while pregnant, and prenatal alcohol exposure in offspring of AD mothers (Cottencin, Nandrino, Karila, Mezerette, & Danel, 2009; Malone et al., 2010; O’Brien & Hill, 2014; Sharma & Hill, 2017). Three of these studies demonstrated that taking maternal alcohol dependence and consumption during pregnancy into consideration moderated the outcome phenotypes, indicating the necessity of controlling for both dependence and consumption.
