Essay, Research Paper: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

It can take as little as one ounce of alcohol for a child to suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This is the leading cause of mental retardation in the Western World. It is now widely accepted by nmedical authorities and researchers that women who drink during pregnancy can adversely affect the development of their unborn infant. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome can be traced back as early as Aristotle's Problemata when he said, "foolish, drunken, or hare-brain women for the most part bring forth children like themselfs, morose adn languid." (Weiner, 129)There was epidemiologic and experimental research accumulating in the early 1900's, documenting the relationship between parental drinking and adverse pregnancy outcome.("Can") Then, in 1920, when the 18th amdendment was ratified and the Prohition went into effect, research on alcohol virtually dissappeared. Between the early 1800's adn 1970's, a vast literature developed alluding the detrimental effects of alcohol on pregnancy. Until, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was officially indentifeid and labeled by Kenneth Jones and David Smith at the University of Washington, in Seattle. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE) refer to a group of physical and mental birth defects resulting form a woman's drinking alcohol during pregnancy. Fetal Alochol Effects is a milder version of birth defects forund in some babies of woman who drank less during pregnancy. The same mental disabilities are present, but there anr no physical signs. THus, smaller amounts of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and different sensitivities of the futus to the amount of alcohol that crosses the placetal barrier show different effects. In the United States, about 12,000 children are born each year with FAS. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is one of the three leading causes of mental redardation and the only one, which is entirely preventable!