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Consequences of using alcohol in pregnancy
Effects of fetal alcohol syndrome on children
Research titles on fetal alcohol syndrome
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Recommended: Consequences of using alcohol in pregnancy
On any given day in the United States... 10,657 babies are born. (US Census Bureau). Twenty of these babies are born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Twenty may seem as though it is not a lot, but when you compare it to the fact that this number is more than HIV positive, Muscular Dystrophy, Spina Bifida and Down Syndrome combine it creates a whole new parameter. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a direct result of a woman’s competed disregard for the fetus.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS, hereinafter), is a series of both mental and physical birth defects that can include, but are not limited to, mental retardation, deficiencies in growth, central nervous system dysfunction, behavioral maladjustments, and craniofacial abnormalities.
It is common knowledge not to smoke or drink during pregnancy.
Growth abnormalities can be significant and also includes all three of the following respects of growth: weight, length and head circumference. Most of the time the baby’s growth abnormalities are so severe they need to be hospitalized because of obvious failure to survive.
A baby with craniofacial abnormalities can be recognized by their eyes in that they are small with exaggerated inner epicanthic folds. (Health Visitor Nov. 1981) The bridge of the nose is normally poorly developed. The ears are often large and simple in form. (Midwives Chronicle and Nursing notes)
At first, when the baby is delivered, the affected infant shows signs of alcohol withdrawal; with signs that are much similar to delirium tremens in adults. They are often anxious, have a weak grasp, poor hand-to-eye coordination and consistent difficulty in feeding and sucking.
People can not blame the mother’s for the most part though. It is a common ignorance among the health care providers. Most health care providers are untrained and unfamiliar with substance abuse issues among pregnant women. FAS is widely misdiagnosed and or under diagnosed. Only ten percent of medical schools require students to complete a course on the proper diagnosis of individuals with alcohol and other drug addictions.
Many women do not receive proper pre-natal care, and a study performed by a National Center for Health Statistics found that doctors appear l...
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Works Sited
Streissguth, A.P., Barr, H.M., Bookstein, F.L., Sampson, P.D., & Carmichael Olsen, H. (1999). The long-term neurocognitive consequences of prenatal alcohol: A 14-year study. Psychological Science, 10(3), 186-190.
Streissguth, A.P., Barr, H.M., & Sampson, P.D. (1990)
Moderate prenatal alcohol exposure: Effects on child IQ and learning problems at age 7 1/2 years.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 14(5), 662-669.
Streissguth, A.P., Barr, H.M., &Sampson, P.D. (1989). Neurobehavioral effects of prenatal alcohol. Parts I, II, and III. Neurotoxicology & Teratology, 11(5), 461-507.
Streissguth, A.P., Barr, H.M., Sampson, P.D., & Martin, D.C. (1986).
Attention, distraction and reaction time at age 7 years and prenatal alcohol exposure. Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology, 8(6), 717-725.
Streissguth, A.P., Grant, T.M., & Ernst, C.C. (1999).
Intervention with high-risk alcohol and drug abusing mothers: II. 3 year findings from the Seattle Model of Paraprofessional Advocacy. Journal of Community Psychology, 27(1), 19-38.
Grant, T.M., Ernst, C.C., & Steissguth, A.P. (1996). An intervention with
The disparities may be attributed to the amount of prenatal care that pregnant women of different ethnicities receive. In 1996, 81.8% of all women in the nation received prenatal care in the first trimester--the m...
Cook, Selig, Wedge, and Gohn-Baube (1999) stated that an essential part of the country’s public health agenda is to improve access to prenatal care, particularly for economically disadvantaged women. I agree with this statement because access to care is very important for the outcome of a healthy mother and child. Improving access to prenatal care for disadvantaged women will not only save lives but also lighten the high financial, social, and emotional costs of caring for low weight babies. Some of the barriers that these women face are mainly structural where the availability of care is limited; the cost of care is a financial burden; and the time to seek care is problematic due to being single mothers working more than one job (Lia-Hoagberb, 1990). Additionally, there is the issue of prenatal care being delivered differently depending on one’s race. A study found that White mothers delivering ve...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggestion that a pregnant woman should not drink alcohol during pregnancy (Advisory on alcohol use in pregnancy 2005) has been widely criticized as being unnecessarily paternalistic, but the CDC goes further into explaining that, “Alcohol consumed during pregnancy increases the risk of alcohol related birth defects, including growth deficiencies, facial abnormalities, central nervous system impairment, behavioral disorders, and impaired intellectual development” (Advisory on alcohol use in pregnancy
Zeigler, Donald. "The neurocognitive effects of alcohol on adolescents and college students." Preventive Medicine 40. (2004): 23 – 32. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. .
Baldwin poses that Blackness determines your circumstances from birth. “This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish…. You were born
lip, skin folds at the corners of the eyes, indistinct groove on the upper lip, and an
The article “Adolescent Brain Development and Underage Drinking in the United States: Identifying Risks of Alcohol Use in College Populations” written by Marisa Silveri, PhD, aims to emphasize the the negative behavioral consequences with underage alcohol use. Silveri is a highly decorated professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has been studying the neurobiology of brain development and consequences of alcohol and drug abuse using preclinical and clinical models for two decades. Her substantial background in psychology and neurobiology make her a highly credible source, and improves the author’s chance of making the point really stick. The article is easy to follow, and split up in subcategories that each cover a specific point the author is trying to make. Professor Silveri, with great credibility, uses logic and also emotional appeal to effectively convince the reader that alcohol use affects the brain negatively, and the importance to discourage the excessive consumption of alcohol by adolescents.
Many studies have established that a developing organism is susceptible to exogenous and endogenous factors during certain stage of the organism’s development. The effects of ethyl alcohol or ethanol on the developing fetus, which manifest a variety of characteristic abnormalities, are collectively called Fetal alcohol Syndrome. Ethanol exposure to the fetus causes various malformation ranging from the cellular to the organismic levels with the eventual results frequently being different levels of mental retardation (3).
Hoyme, H. E., May, P. A., Kalberg, W. O., Kodituwakku, P., Gossage, J. P., Trujillo, P. M., et al. (2005). A Practical Clinical Approach to Diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Clarification of the 1996 Institute of Medicine Criteria. Pediatrics, 39-47.
A mother who drinks while she is pregnant stands a high risk of harming their unborn child because the alcohol passes through her blood to her baby, and that can harm the development of the baby’s cells. This is most likely to harm the baby’s brain and spinal cord. Many of the common effects of a child suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is: distinctive facial features, growth problems making them smaller than the average child, and learning and behavior problems.
Multiple studies have found that FAS is the single most common cause of mental retardation that is completely preventable. When alcohol is consumed during pregnancy it acts as a teratogen, which means it is a substance that interferes with growth and development, and is capable of causing birth defects such as hearing loss, vision loss, reduced cognitive ability, and motor skill deficiencies. Flattened mid-face, short nose and a thinner upper lip are also common physical abnormalities (Tangient LLC, 2014). When consumed, alcohol from the mother’s bloodstream crosses easily into the fetal bloodstream. Because of their size, the unborn baby has a lower capability to metabolize the alcohol, thus it remains in its system for a longer period of time and can result in...
Merrick J, Merrick E, Morad M, Kandel I. (2006). Fetal alcohol syndrome and its long-term effects. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Faculty of Health Sciences Jun;58(3):211-8.
In utero, something that can be tested is habituation, which is a decrease in responsiveness to repeated stimuli.9 In a study done by Hepper, results indicated that the fetus’ response to a binge-like alcohol exposure, increased the number of trials required to habituate and also increased the variability in performance. This could be interpreted as the alcohol negatively affecting the neural integrity and the brain areas involved in habituation, potentially the hippocampus and the pre-frontal cortex.9 Structural damage in the brain could result in abnormalities in development after birth.
There are many possible reasons why a child may grow slowly, including: hereditary factors (short parents), diseases affecting the kidneys; heart, lungs or intestines; hormone imbalances; severe stress or emotional deprivation; infections in the womb before birth; bone diseases; and genetic or chromosomal abnormalities. The Turner Syndrome (known as Ullrich-Turner Syndrome in Germany) is a congenital disease. A German doctor named Ullrich published his article in 1930. American doctor Henry Turner recognized a pattern of short stature and incomplete sexual maturation in otherwise normal females.
There are many different types of dwarfism that researchers have confirmed today, but there still are many genes for dwarfism that remain unidentified.The most common of these known causes is achondroplasia, a bone growth disorder.The Little People Online website states that most dwarfs who suffer from achondroplasia are born to “average-size” parents, and that their birth rate is somewhere between onein26,000-40,000www.lpaonline.org).The main characteristics of this form of dwarfism are normal trunk size with short appendages, irregularly large heads wi...