My adopted teenage son has fasd ama

[Fasdmama]

Ama but please bare in mind I need to protect his privacy so some things I cant talk about. I want to do this to help people understand fasd more.

My adopted daughter has it too.

For those who don’t know, it’s Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

At what age was it suspected he had FSA?

OP, does your son also have epilepsy?

Not a question, but a comment. The number of children being born drug addled and from mothers drinking alcohol is absolutely grim. With clear education for YEARS on this, I can’t believe people can be so selfish. And I don’t accept the addiction twaddle either. Plenty of support services about to stop.

Yep. My son’s BM was on 60 fags a day. How long have we known that smoking is a no no in pregnancy?

We got told before we met him (he was 1 years old) that birth mum had drank through pregnancy. Its quite rare to habe this information but she'd been arrested several times drunk and pregnant and also social services were aware of her turning up to meetings drunk too. However we were told the effect (affect?) On him would be minimal and might be something like not being able to tell the time 🙄.
He doesnt have epilepsy no.
We were told she wasn't aware you shouldn't drink during pregnancy which I dont believe. She would also have been told when arrested etc but it didnt stop her.

@NormasArse thank you I should of put that in the title.

We were told our adopted DS now 30 likely has this too. He is high functioning though so it is often conflated in those cases with ADHD, PTSD, etc.
Anyhow he is certainly not quite 'standard'.
It's certainly not easy for these young people is it? Nor us tbf.

Thank you for this thread. Did he BM have a learning disability?

how old when you adopter him? He’s incredibly lucky to have you and Im in awe of all adoptive parents. I would strongly consider adopting if I didn’t already have birth children with their own needs but there you go.

How does it impact him and you?

OP - report your post and ask @MNHQ to change the title.

This is so simplistic it is hard to believe that anyone could possibly lack empathy this much.

A work colleague of mine many moons ago had FASD and she was obviously highly functional but it had significant consequences for her. Her mum was an aboriginal Canadian and obviously an alcoholic but she had so much trauma and abuse in her life that she was not in a place to raise her daughter at all nor is there any magic solutions to the level of intergenerational trauma she experienced.

My friend was also adopted and suffered enormous trauma from that too. Rejection and abandonment issues were so prevalent in her adult behaviour.

Her adoptive family were pretty good overall but she came at an era where adoption was seen as the solution not the journey through trauma it is recognised as now.

I know speaking to her one of the things she found the most traumatic for her to process was that she felt like her adoptive family who were very locked into a fundamental religious church used her to show off what “good people” they were for adopting and she never really felt like part of the family like her biological siblings were. You could never be sure if that was perception or reality due to her trauma issues but it definitely impacted her a lot.

I’m guessing that things are significantly more trauma informed these days.

Does your son have the classic facial differences of FASD?

I’m not saying this is the case for your son’s BM (I don’t know her background) but culturally a lot of places still don’t understand no drinking with pregnancy. To be honest, it’s relatively recent in human history to stop in the UK. One of my ex colleagues used to work in Ukraine (way before the war) and she said that drinking in pregnancy was extremely common! One of her friends used to go binge drinking and wouldn’t listen to her advice! It’s a very big part of culture there.

What are his symptoms and how does it affect him?

I find this a perplexing one and am often torn. One of my kids ticks every box for FASD, included most facial features, yet I honestly didn’t have a drop of alcohol while pregnant. So, because I didn’t drink they don’t have FASD, yet if I had of they would have FASD as they tick it all. Makes you wonder.

I understand what youre saying!

I think, in an age when there are so many people rejecting medical opinion on vaccination etc., it’s not difficult to see that some people would claim that medical evidence saying that smoking and drinking during pregnancy is a conspiracy theory.

For the love of all that is holy I’m not saying it is, I’m just saying that it’s easy to see how people would. There’s also those that are suffering huge trauma (who probably shouldn’t have got pregnant in the first place but whose lives are so chaotic that birth control is hard for them to access) or who have learning difficulties which make it hard for them to understand consequences.

@Notmymarmosets it is hard isnt it? My ds is very similar. So gets seen as a "naughty boy" until people understand more.
@Newsenmum I was in my late 20s when I adopted him.
Ds seems very "normal" at first but you can soon see his issues. He has reached his age limit of that makes sense at 14. He has lots of flags about his fasd but the main ones for us are that really his impulsive brain works faster than the rest of him. This means he struggles to control his impulses and has very little danger awareness. He seems street wise but is naive. He does not understand abstract consequences so will say "yesterday" which can be up to a year ago. Telling him his homework is due tomorrow means nothing. He has no awareness about money so if he has any spends ot immediately then needs more. He has short term memory issues. He obsesses about things and has to complete the obsession and has addictive personality. His eating is verging on afrid (very minimal amount of food he likes) but is obsessed with sugar.
He is also fun, hilarious, amazing at maths , a brilliant artist. Becoming very good at cooking. He loves us all fiercly is developing empathy which is gorgeous amd makes us laugh daily. (Sorry that went on a lot!)
@BeatriceBatchelor he has very vague facial features. He has low big ears and his top lip (philtrum?) Is a bit smooth. However the time when the face is being created is so small a lot of fasd children have no facial features at all.

Or you could say “how blessed I am to never have experienced these types of struggles.”

@HoppingPavlova I understand what your saying but for a proven diagnosis it is more than facial features and behavioural issues.
We had to have a geneticist report that it wasn't any other genetic abnormalities. We also had to provide evidence that ds birth mom had drunk during pregnancy. This I think is the biggest deal as very birth moms will openly admit drinking so unless outside agencies have reports in it there is no proof. Pavlova I am absolutely not saying you drank btw! Have you had any testing for genetics etc?

How do you know it’s fasd and not asd or early trauma? Were you able to be given a definitive diagnosis ? Does he understand his limitations or does he have magical thinking about cause and effect (ie doesn’t realise his own actions affect events)?
Well done for supporting him through this. It can’t be easy.

@Fasdmama I understand what your saying but for a proven diagnosis it is more than facial features and behavioural issues.
We had to have a geneticist report that it wasn't any other genetic abnormalities. We also had to provide evidence that ds birth mom had drunk during pregnancy. This I think is the biggest deal as very birth moms will openly admit drinking so unless outside agencies have reports in it there is no proof. Pavlova I am absolutely not saying you drank btw! Have you had any testing for genetics etc?

I’m a medical professional so please don’t lecture me about FASD, I have a thorough understanding. Yes, of course we had genetic testing 🙄. It remains that if I had of had alcohol during pregnancy my child would be diagnosed with FASD. However, given I didn’t they don’t have it. But they are absolutely identical to kids who have been diagnosed with it. So, yes, as a diagnosis it does make me wonder.

God, how needlessly rude when your previous comment gave zero indication that you had a thorough understanding of FASD nor a medical background or that you’d had genetic testing, and OP’s response was in no way ‘lecturing’.

You 'don't buy this addiction twaddle'? Gosh. If only people understood that their addictions are 'twaddle' they would just be able to get help and stop! Someone should tell social workers and drug services that they are doing it all wrong!

@narnia (I dont think its linking you sorry) we were in a different authority to the one we adopted ds from so the information doesnt get passed across. We had to fight to get the correct diagnosis for him. He fits a variety of boxes so isnt autistic enough to be diagnosed with that etc.
The first diagnosis we got was that he had spd (sensory processing disorder) but there still seemed to be more. The adoption medical advisor luckily had a lot of knowledge about fasd and suggested we look into it. We saw a paediatrician at 5 who said it was adhd but needed to be over 7 for a diagnosis. They refused to acknowledge fasd because he had a large head circumference and was educationally at his age. I researched as much as I could plus got copies of his adoption records (because it had information about birth mum it was a long road to getting them) and once I had more evidence they believed me. As he gets older it becomes more obvious too so by the time the final information was being gathered (he was 7 and a half) he showed more of the symptoms. I think him turning up at the geneticist appt in cos play spiderman costume trying to climb the walls was a good marker too 🤣