Abnormalities of cardiac physiology and anatomy may occur in children with the fetal alcohol syndrome. To understand the basis of these abnormalities, research has been performed which shows that in mice exposed to ethanol from gestation day 8 to birth via a liquid diet regime with pairfed controls there are ultrastructural changes in the cardiac myocytes. To determine if the exposure to ethanol also affects the development of the cardiac noradrenergic system, which in turn could cause developmental abnormalities, beta adrenoreceptor binding was characterized by Scatchard analyses of concentration dependent binding curves in newborn mice exposed to ethanol in utero. Although body and heart weight were lower in newborns from both the pairfed and ethanol groups compared to a normally fed group, no differences in the densities of the beta adrenoceptors or in the Kd values for binding were seen due to the ethanol or the liquid diet regime. Therefore, at least one component of the development of the cardiac sympathetic system was not altered by ethanol exposure or a reduced caloric intake.