[chemgear]

https://calgaryherald.com/feature/pr...5-711586788fcf

The first large-scale study on FASD in Canada — a survey of more than 2,500 seven- to nine-year-olds in the Greater Toronto Area released last spring — suggests up to three per cent of the general population could have the disorder.

That’s triple previously reported rates, and means that FASD could affect more Canadians than autism and cerebral palsy combined.

In her last annual report, tellingly released just after the legalization of cannabis, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, warned that “because of its social acceptance, we have lost sight of the fact that continued high rates of problematic alcohol consumption are leading to a wide-range of harms.”

We’ve known for more than 45 years that drinking during pregnancy is harmful — more harmful to a fetus than cannabis, crack or cocaine. Why haven’t we succeeded in eradicating FASD? And what needs to change if we can’t?

And yet not all children of mothers who drink during pregnancy, an estimated 10 per cent of Canadian women, are born with FASD. While there are many risk factors for the disorder — genetics, maternal nutrition, exposure to other toxins, poverty and trauma, to name a few — their exact influence remains unclear. Nor is it known exactly how much alcohol may cause FASD, or whether the type of alcohol consumed, 13-per-cent alcohol red wine, say, versus 70-proof tequila, makes a difference.

That lack of certainty has been misinterpreted, says James Reynolds, professor of biomedical and molecular science at Queen’s University and an expert on FASD, to mean that only “problem” drinking puts a fetus at risk.

“Too many physicians in this country still advise women that it’s okay to drink a little bit during pregnancy,” he says. “But what does it mean to drink a little bit? Or is that just an enabling statement that says, ‘Oh I really don’t have to change my lifestyle because I’m pregnant.’”



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/h...l-alcohol.html

More American children than previously thought may be suffering from neurological damage because their mothers drank alcohol during pregnancy, according to a new study.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA, estimates that fetal alcohol syndrome and other alcohol-related disorders among American children are at least as common as autism.

Based on their findings, they estimated conservatively that fetal alcohol spectrum disorders affect 1.1 to 5 percent of children in the country, up to five times previous estimates. About 1.5 percent of children are currently diagnosed with autism.

Then there is the stigma that often makes mothers reluctant to acknowledge alcohol consumption.

“When you identify a kid with FASD, you’ve just identified a mom who drank during pregnancy and harmed her child,”

“People say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I went to a wine tasting and my kid came out fine,’” Dr. Taras said. “But the C.D.C. is saying, ‘We don’t know. Maybe you just won the lottery.’”