Effects of Drinking While Pregnant
According to the journal, An Argument That Goes Back To The Womb, throughout the past 43 years, there has been battle after battle over the right or wrongness of drinking while pregnant. Since alcohol was legalized, women have the right to drink so long as they are of age, but when Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) were discovered it forced women to stop thinking of their rights and think about the baby in the wombs rights by making the right choice to not drink while pregnant for the betterment of the child she was carrying. This, however, is not the choice many women choose to make (Golden, 1999). When women do not use self-restraint by drinking while pregnant, it will cause many issues that cannot …show more content…
When a woman drinks alcohol, it passes through the placenta to the baby. In the itty bitty immature body, alcohol is broken down much slower than it is in a grown adult. Thus, the alcohol level of the baby 's blood can be higher and remain elevated longer than the level in the mom. This often causes the baby to have some sort of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder that lasts a lifetime (March of Dimes, 2012). FASD, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, is "an umbrella term describing the range of effects that can occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. These effects include; physical, mental, behavioral, and/or learning disabilities…" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). One of the worst FASDs is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Babies born with FAS are abnormally small at birth and usually stay that way throughout their development. They have characteristic facial features such as small eyes, thin upper lips and smooth skin in place of the groove between the nose and upper lip. Organs, like the heart, may not form correctly and the brains of many babies with FAS are also small and formed oddly. Most babies are born with some sort of mental disability. Many have poor coordination skills, short attention spans, and emotional and behavioral problems. All this happens due to the mother drinking while …show more content…
This means that children must go somewhere besides their birth parents home which means they end up in foster cares and then adopted families. The only hope for these children are in their adoptive families but because of the decision made by one individual, the birth mother, the child, the federal government, the foster care system, and the entire adoptive family must now deal with the severe issues the children have. Talking with Lisa Hockin, she says that “ “ (personal communication, November 18,
According to the journal, An Argument That Goes Back To The Womb, throughout the past 43 years, there has been battle after battle over the right or wrongness of drinking while pregnant. Since alcohol was legalized, women have the right to drink so long as they are of age, but when Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) were discovered it forced women to stop thinking of their rights and think about the baby in the wombs rights by making the right choice to not drink while pregnant for the betterment of the child she was carrying. This, however, is not the choice many women choose to make (Golden, 1999). When women do not use self-restraint by drinking while pregnant, it will cause many issues that cannot …show more content…
When a woman drinks alcohol, it passes through the placenta to the baby. In the itty bitty immature body, alcohol is broken down much slower than it is in a grown adult. Thus, the alcohol level of the baby 's blood can be higher and remain elevated longer than the level in the mom. This often causes the baby to have some sort of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder that lasts a lifetime (March of Dimes, 2012). FASD, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, is "an umbrella term describing the range of effects that can occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. These effects include; physical, mental, behavioral, and/or learning disabilities…" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). One of the worst FASDs is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Babies born with FAS are abnormally small at birth and usually stay that way throughout their development. They have characteristic facial features such as small eyes, thin upper lips and smooth skin in place of the groove between the nose and upper lip. Organs, like the heart, may not form correctly and the brains of many babies with FAS are also small and formed oddly. Most babies are born with some sort of mental disability. Many have poor coordination skills, short attention spans, and emotional and behavioral problems. All this happens due to the mother drinking while …show more content…
This means that children must go somewhere besides their birth parents home which means they end up in foster cares and then adopted families. The only hope for these children are in their adoptive families but because of the decision made by one individual, the birth mother, the child, the federal government, the foster care system, and the entire adoptive family must now deal with the severe issues the children have. Talking with Lisa Hockin, she says that “ “ (personal communication, November 18,