Female alcoholics don't escape endocrine changes either. Instead of becoming more feminine, as might be expected from alcohol's effects on males, heavy drinking may cause women to be less so because they lose characteristic fatty tissues from the hips and breasts. Sometimes menstruation stops and the ovaries fail to function, resulting in infertility. Women who drink heavily while pregnant often have babies of low birth weight, which is associated with increased risk of infant death. The most severe alcohol-induced injury to the unborn child is fetal alcohol syndrome, a condition characterized by defects of the face and head, growth retardation both before and after birth, and central nervous system abnormalities, such as mental retardation.
Heart defects are often present as well.
Long-term alcohol abuse lops 10 years or so off the lifespan and prematurely ages the brain by about the same. It raises havoc with the appearance, too. Alcohol withers the limbs and swells the belly. Spidery red lines crawl over the nose and cheeks, the face sags, the hands tremble, and the eyes water, maybe with regret for the person who might have been.