Therefore, people who are trying to get pregnant may be pregnant for 1 month or more without knowing it. There’s no cure for FASDs, but early treatment can help your child thrive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explain that roughly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. Not only that, but women may not know they’re pregnant in the first 4 to 6 weeks. Treatment involves stabilization, detoxification, and rehabilitation of the alcohol-dependent person.
- Because brain growth takes place throughout pregnancy, stopping alcohol use will improve the baby’s health and well-being.
- Any amount of alcohol during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome.
- Social services are needed to ensure a safe home environment and provide parental education.
- Some symptoms can be managed with treatment by a healthcare provider, but they won’t go away.
- The physical and mental conditions caused by alcohol exposure before birth are lifelong.
Coping and support
Early intervention and a stable, nurturing home are important to protect children with fetal alcohol syndrome from some of the other issues they’re at risk of later in life. Make sure that people who can become pregnant or are already pregnant learn that drinking alcohol while pregnant can be potentially harmful to their babies. Anyone who is pregnant should have regular care throughout the pregnancy. If a pregnant person has a problem with using alcohol and cannot stop using, substance use treatment during pregnancy should be offered. In addition to the acute effects of withdrawal, babies often suffer the teratogenic (causing abnormalities in formation) effects of alcohol. Specific deformities of the head and face, heart defects, and intellectual disability are seen with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).
How can fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) be prevented?
For example, stimulants may help with attention or emotional regulation, while neuroleptics may help with aggression. As a fetus’s liver is not fully formed, this organ cannot metabolize alcohol. As a result, when a fetus becomes exposed to alcohol, they absorb all of it. In this article, we look at why FAS occurs and its symptoms, treatments, and risk factors.
About Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs)
Generally, the more alcohol a person consumes during pregnancy, the higher the chance of FAS. However, there is a lack of research to confirm the effectiveness of these therapies. Before trying any alternative therapy for FAS, parents or caregivers should speak with the child’s pediatrician or a doctor who specializes in FASDs. In the womb, a baby doesn’t have a fully developed liver that can process or break down alcohol, so it can easily get to and damage the baby’s organs.
Reducing risk
Infants and children with FAS have many different problems, which can be difficult to manage. Children do best if they are diagnosed early and referred to a team of providers who can work on educational and behavioral strategies that fit the child’s needs. Binge drinking is more harmful than drinking small amounts of alcohol. FAS is a diagnosis of great importance for the entire lifetime of the child, not to speak of its implications for the child’s mother and other family members.
- However, while higher amounts of alcohol are more harmful, there is no known amount or type of alcohol that is safe to consume while pregnant.
- Receiving treatment as soon as possible in childhood can help decrease the likelihood of developing these secondary effects in life.
- Sexually active women who drink heavily should use birth control and control their drinking behaviors, or stop using alcohol before trying to get pregnant.
- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are caused by a baby’s exposure to alcohol during pregnancy.
- Still, identification at any age can help a person get access to support and services to improve their quality of life.
Alcohol in the baby’s system can kill developing brain cells, slow growth of the brain, interfere with the neural connections in the brain, and affect other organs. Often mothers who drink have poor eating habits that also affect the baby. There is no known safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. FAS is 100% preventable when a woman abstains completely from alcohol consumption during her pregnancy. Many features seen with fetal alcohol syndrome also may occur in children with other conditions. If fetal alcohol syndrome is suspected, your pediatrician or other healthcare professional will likely refer your child to an expert with special training in fetal alcohol syndrome.
Is Any Alcohol Consumption During Pregnancy Safe?
Treatment for the mother’s alcohol misuse can help with better parenting and prevent future pregnancies from being affected. If you know or think you have a problem with alcohol or recreational drugs, ask a healthcare professional or mental health professional for help. If one child in a family is diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, it may be important to evaluate siblings for fetal alcohol syndrome if the mother drank alcohol during these pregnancies. FASDs are caused by alcohol use at any time during pregnancy, even before a woman knows they’re pregnant. Any alcohol — wine, beer, spirits, etc. — that gets into a mother’s blood can pass directly to the baby through the placenta and affect a baby’s development.
Treatment focuses on controlling the symptoms of the condition. Treatment strategies for FAS include nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic interventions. Physical symptoms such as growth impairment remain unchanged during adulthood, with persistent shorter stature. Brain maturation can become prolonged, and aging can accelerate.
Partial fetal alcohol syndrome (pFAS)
FASD is nonhereditary; alcohol causes neuronal damage and cell loss in the drunken baby syndrome fetal brain through direct action as a toxin. No prenatal period has been shown to be safe from the deleterious effects of alcohol. CNS damage may result from alcohol exposure in any trimester, even before the time of a pregnancy test. Women should be advised not to drink from the time of conception to birth.