Objective-To investigate the effects of smoking, alcohol, and caffeine consumption and socioeconomic factors and psychosocial stress on birth weight.Design-Prospective population study. Main results-Smoking was the most important single factor (5% reduction in coffected birth weight). Passive smoking was not significant (0.5% reduction). After smoking was controlled for, alcohol had an effect only in smokers and the effects of caffeine became non-significant. Only four of the socioeconomic and stress factors significantly reduced birth weight and these effects became non-significant after smoking was controlled for.Conclusions-Social and psychological factors have little or no direct effect on birth weight corrected for gestational age (fetal growth), and the main environmental cause of its variation in this population was smoking.

77MS study investigated alcohol consumption during pregnancy and its relationships with socio-economic, psychological and behavioural factors in 1463 women. Information about alcohol consumption in the preceding 7 days was obtained by structured interview at booking, 28 and 36 weeks gestation. The prevalence of current drinking was about 50% at each interview. Combining the three interviews, the cumulative prevalence of drinking was 71%. Six per cent reported drinking lOOg/wk or more at at least one interview, a level of consumption which has been reported to be associated with adverse foetal outcome. Higher proportions of drinkers than non-drinkers were married, better educated, of higher social class and financial status. These factors were also associated with higher levels of consumption amongst those who drank. There was little evidence of an association between drinking and psychiatric state. Smoking was not associated with drinking status but was strongly related to the amount drunk by drinkers. Cluster analysis of heavier drinkers indicated the presence of a small sub-group of socially disadvantaged women. These findings cany implications for both prevention and perinatal epidemiology. 16. PAUL, A. A. & SOUTHGATE, D. A. T. (1978) McCance and Widdowson's 'The Composition of Foods', 4th revised edition (London, HMSO).

Summary. The clinical and pathological findings in six patients with perinatal listeriosis are presented. One pregnancy resulted in a liveborn infant who developed listerial septicaemia but made a complete recovery following prompt treatment. The other pregnancies ended in intrauterine death. Often antecedent maternal prodromal illness preceded expulsion of a macerated fetus by only a matter of hours making early diagnosis difficult. In all cases the diagnosis of listerial infection was apparent only after the birth of the fetus or new born.

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