Can we talk about... Alcohol exposure? **UPDATED**

[Twelvetinyfeet]

We are approved to adopt and have had a profile shared of a LO who is developing well (just under a year old). However, BM drank throughout pregnancy and we are very concerned about the risks of fasd. Could anyone share their experiences of parenting children who have been exposed to alcohol in utero, with or without a later diagnosis??

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

OP are you aware of the blog Life with Katie and Pip? The author of the blog hasn’t posted in quite a while and it’s probably easy to understand why when you read the more recent updates. It’s worth reading the whole blog as it provides an insight into the difficulties that a child, and families of children with FASD can experience. It’s a very difficult read in places but worth it if you are thinking about adopting a child who is known to have been exposed to alcohol in utero. Think about if you could cope with what they describe. Obviously all children are affected differently and there are positive stories but this does show how hard life can be.
I’m not trying to put you off here, but I think you have to be as informed as you can be when making this kind of decision. Matching is so incredibly difficult, I wish you all the best.

Hi @twelvetinyfeet
My son is now 8 and has only just been diagnosed with arnd (alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder) which is under the fasd umbrella. This is because he doesn't show enough features to be diag used with fas.
We adopted him at 17montjs, we were told birth mom may have drank and medical advisor said he is meeting all his milestones but might have trouble telling the time.
At 4 years old it was obvious there was something wrong and it's taken 4years to get to this point. We discovered there was written info from police and social services that bm had drank and taken drugs through pregnancy.
Our son is very clever but emotionally half his age if not lower. He attends a main stream primary school but we are unsure as yet about high school. He has short term memory loss, no impulse control, spd, massive anger issues and problems with sleeping
He is a hilarious little boy who is full of life and loves life but he is very angry at birth mom for doing this
I'm not saying not to adopt a child with fasd but I think go into it thinking of the worst case scenario. I don't know if my son will live an independent life when he is older so we are planning to have him with us for a large part of his adult life.
Feel free to msg me with any questions
Delila

Our friends adopted a little girl who has turned out to have FASD.
She was adopted at 9 months' old and had no obvious issues at that stage. There was no known history of alcohol use during pregnancy and her BM had some learning disabilities. Her facial features became more obvious over the next year or so. Before she started school she didn't really seem particularly delayed, maybe a little less mature than her peers but nothing too obvious. Her learning issues became more and more obvious between the ages 6 and 9 when she moved from a mainstream to a specialist education service. She's 15 now and it's not clear whether she'll manage to have an independent life, though behaviourally there are few significant issues. It's tricky to know how much is alcohol related and how much is genetic but she does have very classical "FASD" features so I assume much of it at least is due to that.

Spent a lot of time and years engaging with professional's. It is believe it or not all all out there for teachers and professionals has been for some time. see www.complexneeds.org.uk See Modular 4 . 3 resource 17. FAS FASD is an Umbrella term for children effected with complex need's of which there are many conditions this site deals with all complex disability's FASD and otherwise. also best early intervention site with free intervention down loads is www.do2learnfasd.org or google it

Saw this and thought of this thread - It's International FASD Awareness Day 2020 on Wednesday 9th September and Adoption UK joining forces to promote FASD throughout this month.

It's 2020 FASD campaign #IcanFASD focusing on the successes, talents and achievements of those with FASD.

We took on foster child pretty much straight from birth that had been exposed to alcohol regularly (but not an addict), marijuana daily and cocaine occasionally.

The baby cried frequently for the first week, but stopped when held so the most difficult part was the night time. The baby passed around 15 stools per day, that number slowly came down and was 1 a day, after around a month. Finally the baby also had a tremor when feeding and would pause mid bottle and the babies lip would shake, again it was only around a month when this finally stopped.

We did do some research at the time and the baby was not in the worst bracket. We read that side effects can also cause screaming/crying and that they can last for up to 6 months, which I remember seeming quite daunting at the time.

Hi everyone, just wanted to update this thread. Having done a lot of research and scaring myself silly, when we had our chemistry visit it was a reminder that LO was a wonderful little human being with her own history, personality and heart - not just a scary statistic, which brought things back into focus. We went ahead with the match and she's been home with us for a while now. Of course, we have fallen head over heels in love and are so glad we made the leap.

She's doing really well and, while we don't know what the future holds, we are loving watching her thrive and enjoying all the progress she is making.

Thanks again for those who shared their experiences.

what a lovely update @Twelvetinyfeet, good to hear she is making progress

Lovely update, thank you for sharing. We adopted our youngest two with the understanding that there was a high risk for FASD. They are currently 3 and 4. Three year old does have a fair bit of development delay but is making good progress all of the time.

Congratulations. Such a lovely update.

Lovely update congratulations on your LO