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Alcohol abuse among pregnant women
Effect of foetal alcohol syndrome on a childs development
Effects of fetal alcohol syndrome in childhood
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Recommended: Alcohol abuse among pregnant women
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention: Creating Health Literacy Awareness About the
Effects of Alcohol to the Unborn Child
Alcohol consumption among pregnant women is a growing problem not only in the U.S. but also to the rest of the world. Billions are spent treating birth defects and other symptoms related to prenatal alcohol drinking. Statistics done shows that treatment of the disorder costs the U.S. 6 billion dollars annually (Burd & Hardwood, 2004); adjust that to the current inflation rate and it could be as high as 8 million dollars. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) Community Resource Center came up with $5.4 million dollars as the estimated expected lifetime costs for one child with FAS disorder in 2003. This includes direct cost (surgical corrections of FAS related birth defects, heart and auditory defects and moderate to severe mental retardation) and indirect cost (healthcare, special education, psychotherapy, counseling, crime and welfare). These extremely high costs clearly justify major prevention efforts not only from the government but also from the public. To achieve this goal, the public and the community must be educated about FAS, woman of child-bearing age; especially teenagers and school age children should and must be informed about the effects of alcohol on an unborn child before they even discover alcohol on their own (Donnelly, Mowery, & McCarver, 1998).
We begin by creating awareness of the problems through educational campaigns. “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Florida Resource Guide,” a brochure produced jointly by the Florida Department of Children and Families, the Florida Department of Health, and the Florida State University Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy has this to say about F...
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...D. G. (1998) Knowledge and Misconceptions Among Inner- City African-American Mothers Regarding alcohol and Drug Use. American Journal of Drug & Alcohol Abuse, 24(4), 675-683.
Glik, D., Prelip, M., Myerson, A., Eilers, K., Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Using Community-Based Narrowcasting Campaigns. Health Promotion Practice, 9 (1), 93-103.
Lupton, C., Burd, L. and Harwood, R. (2004), Cost of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C: Seminars in Medical Genetics, 127C: 42–50. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.c.30015
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Florida Resource Guide (n.d.) Retrieved January 26, 2011 from http://fasdcenter.samhsa.gov/document/ FASDGuide12_021.pdf
The Economic Cost of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome FAS Community Resource Center 2003. Retrieved January 26, 2011 from http://www.fascenter.samhsa.gov.publications/economic cost.
Kreager, Derek A., Ross L. Matsueda, and Elena A. Erosheva. 2010. “Motherhood and Criminal Desistance in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods.” Criminology 48:221-58.
Miner KJ, Holtan N, Braddock M, Cooper H, Kloehn D. Barriers to screening and counseling pregnant women for alcohol use. Minn Med. 1996;79:43–47.
Kreager, Derek A., Ross L. Matsueda, and Elena A. Erosheva. 2010. “Motherhood and Criminal Desistance in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods.” Criminology 48:221–58.
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
lip, skin folds at the corners of the eyes, indistinct groove on the upper lip, and an
a patient's birth defects. In other words, FAE is a less severe form of FAS.
Burd, L. and Martsolf, J. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Diagnosis and Syndromal Variability. Physiology and Behavior, 46:39-43 (1989).
Dorothy E. Roberts exclusively focuses on how single black, unwed mothers are criminalized by the justice system and thrown into jail for petty and non-criminal actions. Unfortunately, these injustices are deemed justifiable by the courts and the state, and therefore the rate of incarcerated black mothers has skyrocketed. This cycle is maintained by politics of race, gender, and class that stereotypes black single mothers as “welfare queens” and dependent on the state. These actions not only affect the women individually, but its affects are felt
Dickerson, Bette J. 1995. African American Single Mothers: Understanding their lives and Families. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks.
Chudley, A., Conry, J., Cook, J., Loock, C., Rosales, T., & LeBlanc, N. (2005). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Canadian Guidelines for Diagnosis. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 172(5). doi:10.1503/cmaj.1040302
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.
... lack of knowledge of the causes and effects of FAS is discernable from a young age and visibly continues into adulthood. Increased rates of violence place pregnant women at risk for turning to alcohol during pregnancy as a coping mechanism for anxiety. In addition, economic hardships, social expectations, and cultural standards can feed cycles of alcohol use. American Indian women who abuse alcohol are at risk for directly causing fetal damage and possibly delivering a child born with fetal alcohol syndrome. The development of information set to target younger generations of Native Americans is a starting point focused on diminishing the prevalence of alcohol abuse. These efforts are a beacon of hope for not only Native American women who suffer from alcohol abuse but the unborn children who won’t have to spend their lives living with fetal alcohol syndrome.
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.
Children can be effected by their caregiver’s alcohol and substance abuse in numerous ways. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a pattern of birth defects caused by maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. Children born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome tend to have physical abnormalities such as deformed facial characteristics. They are generally born with a variety of emotional and/or intellectual limitations. It is very common for these children to...
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!” A child has most likely heard that phrase at some point in their life. Although, it is not ethical or legal for a mother to “take her kid out of this world”, it does bring up a good point that it was through her body, that the child was born. One of the most important responsibilities in this world is a mother carrying a child in the womb. There are many divine processes that take place during gestation, but there are also many contributing factors from the mother that can affect the developing human. These factors may include what a woman ingests and exposes her embryo or fetus to. Sadly, alcohol use during pregnancy is an ongoing problem that can have detrimental affects on the fetus, including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Choosing to drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy is a choice, a risky choice. Unfortunately some women don’t even know they are making a risky choice by consuming alcohol because it is in the early stages of pregnancy. It is common for a female to not find out they are pregnant until at least the fifth or sixth week after fertilization. In 2006, 49% of all pregnancies in the United States were reported unintended on a national survey.1 The highest rate of preventable birth defects and mental retardation is due to alcohol use.2 In this paper, I will further discuss FAS, the potential effects of binge drinking during the embryonic stage of gestation, and what actions need to be taken in order to reduce the incidences of alcohol related birth defects.