Drinking up to seven glasses of alcohol per week during pregnancy does not appear to harm the neurodevelopment of foetuses, a new study suggests.

UK scientists assessed the balancing ability of almost 7,000 10-year-olds. The ability to balance is seen as an indicator of prenatal neurodevelopment. In other words, it is linked to your development in the womb.

The children's balance was assessed over a 20-minute period and this included walking on a beam and standing on the beam on one leg, with eyes open and closed. Every child had two attempts at the test.

In each case, it was known whether the child's mother had drank during and/or after pregnancy.

The scientists found that seven in 10 of the mothers had not consumed any alcohol during pregnancy, while one in four had low consumption (one to two drinks per week) or moderate consumption (three to seven drinks per week).

Almost 5% consumed seven or more glasses of alcohol per week and of these, one in seven were binge drinkers - consuming four or more drinks at any one time.

Four years after the pregnancy, at least one in four of the women were non-drinkers, while over half were consuming between three and seven glasses per week.

The study noted that those who binge drank tended to be younger and less well off, while those who drank more, but were not binge drinkers, were older and better off.

According to the scientists, after taking into account influencing factors, such as age, previous motherhood and smoking, it appeared that low to moderate alcohol consumption did not adversely affect the child's ability to balance.

The findings from the University of Bristol are published in the journal, BMJ Open.

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