Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a child’s right to be born without a disability!
Fetal Alcohol syndrome doesn’t have to happen.
Alcohol use is gross abuse in the womb, increasingly prevalent, as a growing trend to drink during pregnancy develops among young parents-to-be. It is a growing problem among men who do not link drinking effects to the fetus they and their female partner conceived. Fetal alcohol syndrome (or FAS) is not a genetic accident, or a case of genetic inheritance or any other condition associated with the gene pool…it is a group of defects among genes caused by alcohol consumption. Blame can be directly leveled at a parent’s conscious decision to drink in the early months of pregnancy when gestation is in the early stages and the fetus is at the mercy of genetic development. Hardly a disease exists that is the result of such selfish and unmanaged use of drugs and alcohol. The choice to continue drinking is often a thoughtless social habit that will haunt drinking parents without end… fathers-to-be can care!
When pregnant women and their partners choose to drink alcohol, their choice impacts the early and middle fetal stages of growth and development. It is as simple as that! A mother who drinks every day and the father, who joins her, run the risk of having a child whose care can top a hundred thousand dollars. Beer and wine and hard alcoholic drinks are time bombs, going off regularly in biological time terms, destroying fetal cells, their shapes, their productivity and soft tissue resulting in abnormal fingers and toes, ears and other anomalies, widely varied, but dependent on a healthy central nervous system, negatively affecting the brain’s flexibility and brilliant ability to throw off infection and disfigurement.
Now, a description of a family whose children who showed symptoms of FAS after several months and who had to give up their dreams at early ages.
Brenda is a divorced mother of three sons and a daughter. It is the girl that she and Mike conceived a year prior to their marriage who has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. She was pregnant (a boy) again the next year when they did marry, using drugs in addition to alcohol throughout this time. Now, with 2 boys in diapers and pregnant, Brenda came to the decision, to throw Mike out of the house, file for divorce and move in with a new man who was older and had “resources.” Brenda’s daughter was diagnosed in the nearby school, as mentally handicapped and unable to be in a regular prekindergarten classroom.
The daughter‘s slow development in visual-motor activities and lack of coordination were ignored, and she stayed home with her brothers. Brenda cut back somewhat on her daytime drinking and noticed that her daughter was not eating or growing. The girl’s name was Marcy, and she appeared (at this point Brenda was taking more notice) to lack the ability to hear or follow directions even at the level of her younger brothers. Marcy’s frequent eye- blinking episodes and seizure-like twitches, lack of bowel and bladder control at home now caused Brenda to think more clearly and concerned, for the first time, and she took her five year- old to a walk-in clinic, where an assessment was done. The clinic insisted on a drinking and drug abuse oral history of Mike and Brenda at that first meeting.
Answering questions concerning Mike’s drug abuse and her neglect of the children, Brenda says she “came clean” and asked for help for her family. The diagnosis, a week later, was fetal alcohol syndrome with mental retardation and pervasive developmental disorder. She and Mike talk more often and are able to take turns, since neither is working, to use public transportation to take Marcy every day to an early intervention program five miles from Brenda’s home which she shares with her boyfriend. Now Brenda points to her daughter and says, ”Marcy is going to recover and get smarter!” She is determined to make a life that is as normal as possible for her boys and Marcy and she doesn’t think the boys have the same problems.
In fact, the clinic identified that the three little boys have forms of hearing loss, poor bone mass, low muscle and joint problems in their fingers, toes. They, too, will start early intervention therapy at a school-based clinic closer to their house, where Brenda hopes they will later go to school there, and learn normally. “I know my drinking and Mike’s caused this so now I have to help the kids, she says.
Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a condition that results from prenatal alcohol exposure. If you drink during pregnancy, you place your baby at risk of fetal alcohol syndrome. The defects that are part of fetal alcohol syndrome are irreversible and can include serious physical, mental and behavioral problems, though they vary from one child to another. As many as 40,000 babies are born with some type of alcohol-related damage each year in the United States. If you suspect that your child has fetal alcohol syndrome, talk to your doctor as soon as possible. Early diagnosis may reduce the risk of problems associated with fetal alcohol syndrome, including troubles at school, with substance abuse and with the law.
| From 1989 - 1996 Dr. Turben was Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at John Carroll University. In addition to teaching Teach Education and Early Childhood-Special Education courses, she supervised masters and post-baccalaureate programs that lead to the PreK, Kindergarten, and Early Education of Handicapped Children validations. She has done research concerning the effectiveness of home visits, the importance of neighborhoods as social structures and parent involvement in schools. |
