In a follow-up study of “high risk” obstetrical patients, 30% tested positive for high levels of FAEEs (Goh et al. 2010). Although more research needs to be done on the usefulness of FAEEs as a biomarker for prenatal alcohol exposure (Burd and Hofer 2008), this test has been proposed as a cost-effective means to identify high-risk offspring (Gifford et al. 2010). However, research to develop other biomarkers of maternal alcohol use also needs to be pursued for several reasons. First, any meconium assay will have the limitation of providing information on maternal drinking only after childbirth, and even then only for the latter two trimesters. An alternative approach would be to measure FAEEs in another tissue such as maternal hair (Kulaga et al. 2010). In addition, other research is on-going on a range of other biomarkers, such as micro-RNA, and potential proteomic and metabolic markers (Datta et al. 2008).
