Alcohol - Crisis For The Unborn

Washington DC made Health caution Recent research reports indicate that heavy use of alcohol by women during pregnancy may result in a pattern of abnormalities in The Offspring termed the fetal alcohol syndrome [Music] [Music] the fetal alcohol syndrome a combination of birth defects caused by excessive drinking a growing concern for many years has now become an alarming fact among the leading investigators who have focused on this problem is Dr David Smith but I'd like to show you some of the features that we see in these babies that allow us to suspect that the baby has this disorder here in these pictures you can see the babies tend to have a short ey slit that is a consequence of the eye being a bit smaller and the eye is an early derivative of the brain they also tend to have a somewhat small midf face that gives them a little bit different look they can also have problems of heart development occasionally they have a problem of closure of the lip or pallet a cleft lip or pallet now these features are all the consequence of the effects of alcohol on early growth and development in this critical period prior to birth the most serious effects on the developing baby are on its growth the baby which normally is growing rapidly prior to the time of birth is growing slowly so that by the time of birth they come out as an unusually small baby we would not mind the smallness in terms of the physical growth alone but it's the brain growth is also affected so the brain is unusually small because of the small brain these babies have mild to moderate to severe mental deficiency and that is the most serious consequence that they are left with for Life round and round with our cray this child was born at the University of Washington and his development has been observed since birth his mother was a chronic alcoholic who'd been drinking heavily prior to his birth Anna when his behavior is compared to a normal child of his own age he's very deficient I can't hear you how old are you a normal child has no problem putting the right shapes in the right box yeah a child with fetal alcohol syndrome does not even grasp the problem to be solved put it in put it in you got a normal 3-year-old can easily Master the task of walking up and down stairs not so the fetal alcohol syndrome child [Music] he has shown some progress on a month-to-month basis but he has an IQ of 40 and is not showing the ability to catch up with normal children nor do we anticipate that he will ever function normally put those in now the important thing about this disorder is that it is preventable one of the sad things is that women did not realize that alcohol was dangerous and even today many women still do not realize that alcohol is dangerous that was true for the family that you're about to meet who have an affected child and Dr James Hansen who's an associate with me is going to introduce you to this family I can remember very well the first time we were talking together and I mentioned that I thought that some of Cathy's problems might be related to your alcohol consumption during pregnancy I can remember your reaction I wonder if if you could kind of review what your feelings were when I mentioned that I thought that might be the source of the problem well it it was certainly um something that I didn't want to hear I had no idea at the time that I was pregnant with Kathy that alcohol could create this kind of problem and then as we went from Doctor to doctor and really some of the medical schools and all and no one could really tell us what her problem was and I began to to feel way in the back of my mind that possibly alcohol could have contributed to it um was just a very hard thing to handle to have you find finally say that I I was frankly very surprised I I hadn't heard about this uh syndrome as you call it I hadn't read about it or heard about it for some reason and U in fact I was very angry at first but I'm not now and and I was very surprised what's what was your pattern of of drinking like well I'd go through the day and and be fine and U do what had to be done take care of the children but then at night as soon as I'd get the kids into bed of course i' I'd um feel that I had to have a drink to unwind and the pattern was that I never stopped with a drink and I would end up consuming a half a bottle of Scotch before I would go to bed every night so it was really quite a high volume for short periods of time well I was alone a lot and it just you know I I really did have a hand in this because during the time she was pregnant with Kathy I was gone for months at a time and it was hard for Pat very hard she was alone all the time really well guilt feelings are a very difficult thing to deal with but when it's a problem that's such as alcohol that's directly related to your child's health it's um really a hard one to handle and I I don't know that you ever really you learn to live with that you don't really handle it you learn to live with it at this time we don't know what constitutes a safe level of alcohol consumption for pregnant woman so our advice to mothers to be is before you take a drink think of your unborn baby alcohol crisis for The Unborn but a crisis that only a mother can prevent [Music] [Laughter] [Music] f [Music]