.png)
Fetal alcohol syndrome features (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health)
Destroying yourself with alcohol is one thing. Destroying an innocent fetus by excessive use of alcohol is maternal madness. Yet every year in Canada, alcohol-riddled babies are born suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).
FAS is the leading cause of mental retardation and birth defects in North America. In 1976, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a study of 41 infants born with FAS who suffered from physical and mental defects.
Since that time, studies show that 9 in every 1,000 babies born in this country have some form of FAS. One in three will have the severe form with wide-set eyes, thin upper lips, low birth weight, and small head circumference.
We now know that FAS occurs in about one-third to one-half of infants whose mothers consume six or more alcoholic drinks a day during pregnancy. A report from Harvard claims the risk drops to 10 percent with three drinks a day and that 5 ounces of absolute alcohol a day, or binge drinking, can cause this medical and social disaster.
Many pregnant women don’t realize that when they consume alcohol, the fetus also consumes it. Moreover, there is a huge difference between alcohol in the mother’s body and alcohol in the fetus.
Pregnant women have well-functioning, mature livers, which help to detoxify alcohol in the blood. A developing fetus does not have this metabolic safeguard. This means that when alcohol crosses the placental barrier, the fetus is poorly equipped to handle it and is subjected to a higher concentration of alcohol for a longer period of time. This spells disaster for the developing brain.
Kent Roach, law professor at the University of Toronto, recently reported that brain-damaged children are more likely to end up in court. He also believes that these children are more likely to be unfairly treated in the criminal justice system. And he questions whether judges should consider FAS children unfit for trial.
I am not a lawyer and have no way of knowing how unfairly FAS children are treated in a court of law. But I do know that once some pregnant women start consuming a bottle of whiskey every day, their babies enter this world with more than three strikes against them. And unlike some medical problems, there is no way to heal their damaged, ill-formed brains.
So a drunken mother passes along not only more court appearances, but also a host of mental and physical problems that last a lifetime. One does not need much imagination to speculate on what this tragedy costs the child and society.
According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, Canada spends C$4,000,000,000 (US$3,812,445,899) annually on FAS children. In the province of Alberta alone there are 8,000 children with FAS being cared for by social services with the lifetime cost for each child over one million dollars.
The 10th Special Report to the U.S. Congress estimated that the annual cost to care for FAS children was in the billions of dollars. And each year in the United States, another 40,000 children are born with this disease.
What is equally appalling is that obstetrical contacts tell me that some women bring not one but several FAS children into this world. Why this is allowed to happen boggles my mind and, I hope, yours.
Kent Roach is no doubt right that these children receive questionable justice in a court of law. I would add that FAS children receive no justice while in the womb. No law can incarcerate pregnant women to prevent their daily binges. Nor is there any law that will stop them from having additional FAS children.
What do you think? I am interested in receiving your opinion. E-mail me at Gifford-Jones@ hotmail.com
Dr. Gifford-Jones is a medical journalist with a private medical practice in Toronto. His Web site is Mydoctor.ca/gifford-jones
