Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Essay

Decent Essays
From the moment the baby is conceived, until it is born it is affected by what the mother does. You get high your baby gets high. You drink your baby drinks. Excessive exposure to alcohol during pregnancy can inflict serious, permanent physical and mental damage on your child. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is one of the nations top concerns in unborn infants. It’s a growing problem. More and more babies are born each day with this problem. Any women are at risk of having a child with FASD. Its been happening for hundreds of years. People began to notice it more around the 1700’s when gin was created and women were drinking large consumptions of it. (Golden, Janet Lynne. Message in a Bottle: The Making of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2005. Print. (book pg19) Alcohol can harm an embryo or fetus at any time. Even before the women knows she is pregnant. Women who drink until they find out if they are pregnant are still at risk. It can happen to anyone. Many women who have given birth to a child with fetal alcohol syndrome have also given birth to other children with it. There is no way of measuring how much alcohol one can consume before defects …show more content…
Early intervention programs and multi-therapy programs (including physical therapy) may often lessen the impact of the diagnosis. For example, a child who is diagnosed with FAS early in life can be placed in classes that help the child learn and behave better. The consequences of the FAS do not decrease with time, change when the child grows up. There are five key to working with these children structure, consistency, variety, brevity and persistence in addition children with FAS need a loving, nurturing, and stable home in order to avoid any disruptions in their life or that may cause harmful relationships. There is no cure for it but there are programs for people who have it to help them be as normal as

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Alcohol use during pregnancy is a major public health concern and the focus of widespread media concentration (2). Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can lead to negative effects on the baby. Consuming alcohol while pregnant can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (F.A.S.D.) and fetal alcohol syndrome (F.A.S.). Researchers Kenneth Lyon Jones and David W. Smith first came across F.A.S. in 1973 (2). This discovery led to widespread public awareness and education, informing women to limit the amount of alcohol they consume while pregnant (2).…

    • 1909 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Five Life Factors

    • 1781 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Physically, if Stephens’s mother had consumed alcohol this could have leaded Stephen to have serious health conditions, such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). It's called a spectrum because the problems can range from mild learning difficulties, through to birth defects. Heavy drinking can also cause problems with pregnancy, such as miscarriage and premature birth (BMA 2007: 2; 9). Too much alcohol can even increase the risk of Stephen being stillborn (RCOG 2006a). They can have short term effects such as low birth weight.…

    • 1781 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Parrens Patriae Case Study

    • 1024 Words
    • 4 Pages

    1. Explain the term “parents patriae”, and give an example as to when this would be used. “Parens patriae” is a Latin word which means a parent for a country. In this legal set of guidelines, the state can act as a guardian for individuals who are unable to care for themselves, such as children. In this policy, a Juvenile Court Judge has to determine when a child is delinquent, abandoned or needs parental care.…

    • 1024 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If the woman consumes alcohol without knowing she is pregnant still causes damage to the fetus. The consumption of alcohol during the first to third trimester causes an excessive amount of damage to the fetus. As the fetus begins to develop the first two main organs to generate are the heart and the brain. Since the brain is the most sensible organ in the entire human body alcohol can cause a severe amount damage to the fetus's brain. This causes babies to be born with several symptoms.…

    • 1578 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, many times mothers drink in their first few weeks of pregnancy when she does not even know she is pregnant. If this is the case, it can be very unfortunate that fetal alcohol syndrome occurs, but one of the best pieces of advice to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome is for the mother to adapt to healthy lifestyles even before she is pregnant. When a woman is attempting to get pregnant, it is best for her to stop drinking while trying just for preventative measures. In a study done in mice, however, it was found that alcohol consumption in a male prior to conception could also lead to abnormal development of organs or the brain in the fetus.13 This is lead to believe that alcohol could affect the genes in the sperm that lead to normal development in the fetus.…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most of you will not feed your child alcohol, so why feed it to your child when your child is in your womb eating and drinking everything you eat and drink? When a woman drinks alcohol during pregnancy, her child may end up having mental and physical deficiencies. Many pregnant women who do drink alcohol. Its estimated that each year in U.S., 1 in every 750 infants is born with physical, developmental, and functional problems, while 40,000 are born with fetal alcohol effects.…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fetal alcohol syndrome affects each baby differently. It can cause learning disabilities, behavior problems, and problems with physical development. Some children are born with little or no effects from alcohol exposure during pregnancy, while others are severely affected. Damage caused by drinking alcohol during pregnancy is not…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Alcoholism not only impacts adults but also children in the form of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAE). A piece of the puzzle against fighting and defeating alcohol is doctoring the people who are suffering from, affected by, and at a high risk of the disease of…

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the leading known preventable cause of developmental and physical birth defects. If a mother drinks alcohol during her pregnancy her fetus is at risk of mental and physical deformations (WebMD, 2000). As previously stated, each year it is estimated…

    • 1756 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is during this time that the fetus is easily at risk of anything that the mother consumes or is exposed to. Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy run the risk of having various complications, alcohol will be distributed throughout both the mother and her unborn child, when she drinks, and even a small amount can alter the fetus’s development in the womb. Exposure to alcohol before the child is born can cause a variety of different problems. Fetal alcohol syndrome is one of the most severe problem of drinking during pregnancy. If a woman drinks alcohol during her pregnancy the baby can be born with FAS, which is a lifelong, physically and mentally disabling…

    • 1440 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With that said, it is important that physicians are able to find out right away if a baby is affected by FAS which leads to the next question of how FAS is…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fetal Alcohol research Every year thousands of infants are born exposed to drugs. Some of these babies are born addicted and some premature and some with organ, limb, facial deformities and some with brain damage. Even Small amount of alcohol or drug can put the baby’s health at risk. Drugs can also cause the baby to be born prematurely, have learning and behavior problems, have sleeping and, have speech and language delays. Even over the counter medicine can be dangerous.…

    • 1808 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This means the fetus is being exposed to high levels of alcohol where it does not have the ability to filter it out. Also, it has been shown that the amniotic fluid can act like a reservoir for the alcohol, giving the fetus prolonged exposure (Huether, McCance,…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Extreme alcohol consumption during pregnancy results in a child being born with a condition called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). The alcohol consumed by the expectant mother is considered a teratogen, which is any substance that can impair cognitive and behavioral outcomes (Santrock, 2013, p. 69). Symptoms of FAS vary but include birth defects, decreased growth, learning, and behavioral issues just to name a few (“Alcohol Effects on a Fetus-Topic Overview,” 2015, para. 3). The impact alcohol has on the fetus in utero lasts a lifetime for a child diagnosed with FAS. Society today places a high value on education and goal achievement, and a child entering first grade has so much to learn.…

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is also not a good idea to drink while pregnant. The unborn baby can be affected by the alcohol and this can lead to lifelong problems. “One of the most serious consequences of drinking during pregnancy is fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), a group of incurable and lasting problems for the child that can include mental retardation, vision and hearing problems, and physical birth defects.” (Gale, 2015). Drinking a lot causes intoxication with symptoms which include slurred speech, impaired balance, and not normal behavior.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays