Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Causes, Symptoms & Diagnosis

Two unrelated boys, ages 7 and 9, were found to have IQs in the range of 60-70, which indicates a severe cognitive disability. Alcohol use in pregnancy has significant effects on the fetus what is alcoholism and the baby. Dependence and addiction to alcohol in the mother also cause the fetus to become addicted. At birth, the baby’s dependence on alcohol continues.

Health Care Providers

Crying in infancy is a common trigger in cases where shaking occurs. Other risk factors include isolation, poverty, domestic violence and substance use. During severe economic downturns, the rate of shaken baby incidents rises, since research shows that social stressors often contribute. In these incidents, the infant is typically grabbed around the chest and shaken back and forth several times. Small blood vessels around the brain break and bleed, causing blood to flow around the brain. In some cases, similar forces occur in the back of the eye, and hemorrhages in the retina can occur.

• If you get pregnant, quit drinking alcohol right away.
• Maybe they tried to resuscitate their child with cardiac massage or something, or maybe they tried to slowly shake the baby, but it’s a very mild type of shaking.
• Early diagnosis and treatment may help lessen some issues.
• He said, like the child-neurology specialist at the hospital, that it could be a medical condition and that maybe it was not shaken baby syndrome.
• And still, we can think that 2 percent is not that much, but it’s still, like, 100 times more than the number of shaken baby syndrome diagnoses.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome FAQs

Alcohol use during this time could negatively impact the baby. Damage from alcohol can happen at any point during pregnancy. The beginning drunken baby syndrome of fetal development is the most important for the whole body, but organs like the brain continue to develop throughout pregnancy.

• People with FASDs can have lifelong effects, including problems with behavior and learning as well as physical problems.
• Don’t wait for your child to have issues before seeking help.
• The child may have symptoms ranging from persistent vomiting to seizures or even seem unconscious.
• Damage can be done in the first few weeks of pregnancy when a woman might not yet know that she is pregnant.
• Over time, your child may get help from special education programs and social services.
• “Binge drinking” (having 4  or more drinks at a time) is especially dangerous for your baby.

“Spectrum” rather than Syndrome

Children with FAS will benefit from a stable and loving home. They can be even more sensitive to disruptions in routine than an average child. Children with FAS are especially likely to develop problems with violence and substance abuse later in life if they are exposed to violence or abuse at home. These children do well with a regular routine, simple rules to follow, and rewards for positive behavior. Damage can be done in the first few weeks of pregnancy when a woman might not yet know that she is pregnant.

Complications Of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

In some cases, your healthcare provider might be able to diagnose a child with fetal alcohol syndrome at birth based on small size and specific physical appearance. However, diagnosis of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders can be difficult. FASD may present in childhood or early adulthood with mild social or intellectual concerns, or it can present with birth defects and growth problems during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is the most severe form of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a range of conditions caused by exposure to alcohol in the womb. FAS symptoms include distinctive facial features, lower-than-average height and weight, and problems with brain and nervous system development.

Primary disabilities

And a few years later, doctors in the U.S. started to presume abuse whenever they found subdural and retinal hemorrhage in infants. Why that has been the case, why this mere hypothesis, Maybe it’s shaking, was transformed into, It is shaking, and we need to call the police, that I don’t know. But by the ’80s, you start to see prosecutions based on this theory. Fetal alcohol syndrome is one of the major complications of maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy.