system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Before ~1850, did people know the effects of drinking while pregnant? Or were many children just born with fetal alcohol syndrome?
gpt
The effects of alcohol on pregnancy have been known since alcohol was introduced to humans.  The thing is fetal alcoholism syndrome is not caused by daily light use of alcohol.  It is from frequent heavy use.  Depending on the culture she lived in it would not have been appropriate for a lady of child bearing age to get drunk often, mostly because of the known association.

This also would have been further complicated by the fact that there were no commercially available pregnancy test until the 1960s so women had to rely on symptoms and knowing their body to confirm pregnancy.  So even if they knew there was a link they often did not know they were pregnant until after the sensitive period in the first trimester.  That is why many cultures discouraged heavy drinking during the child bearing years.