To think baby's health should come before mother's feelings?

[missduff]

I have 1 dc and I'm currently 9 weeks pregnant and the other week it dawned on me that in neither pregnancy I've been given any information about alcohol in pregnancy and the possible affects it can have on baby.

It doesn't really make much difference to me as I think I have a rather sensible attitude towards alcohol: none in first trimester and then maybe a unit or 2 on special occasions (birthdays/Xmas etc).

But I know there are a lot of women who are very ignorant and think 'oh it won't happen to me' so I think for this reason it would be good for the nhs to educate women about FAS.

I asked myidwife at my booking in appointment why they give us so many leaflets but why do they not give us one about drinking in pregnancy, her answer was ''we don't want to scare women''. Her point was that a lot of women have already been drinking in early pregnancy before they find out so I suppose the fear may be that if they give a woman a leaflet saying ' this is what can happen to your baby if you drink' then a woman may terminate the pregnancy unnecesssarily.

BUT what about the women who just don't know? Isn't it better to educate the women and try and tackle the UK's ever increasing rates of FAS? Which btw the figures are totally innacurate, it's thought that a lot of children with FAS are just diagnosed with autism.

I just think that the health of all these babies should surely be put before the woman's feelings?

It is offensive when that care is expressed as a judgemental attitude.

Already, most people think children with ASD are just poorly parented, including plenty of teachers and other professionals.

Add in this "Oh, but ASD is just FAS-lite, bet she DRANK..." Oh, the fun the SN bashers will have

sardinequeen I know fully what the difference between FAS and FASD is thank you, probably better than anybody on here does.

My point about the pregnant pissed women is I see it first hand, I see the social issues, I see the children and young people affected by their pissed parents.
Tbh I don't really care what the name of a child's condition is, I will treat every child with the same care, I will treat them for who they are. But I know that some of the children in our centre would not be there if it wasn't for the fact that their parents drank in pregnancy and I just wish that more could have been done for them. If that makes me a bad person then go ahead and carry on slating me!

missduff - that's not necessarily the healthiest attitude to alcohol. Teetotallers actually die younger than moderate drinkers. Strange but true. Obviously heavy drinking is bad for you - and one glass of wine a night can be too much if it's every night.

Then why do you use FAS and FASD interchangeably in your posts?

You also seem to be concerned with people who have a problem with alcohol. Well yes, that is reasonable. That has little to do with your OP though and your introduction of US ideas about controlling women when they are pregnant (and even "pre-pregnant") leaves a nasty taste.

edam what's your point? That I should drink more? It's not about how much I or anybody drinks in normal life but in pregnancy.

Has it been established whether or not women pregnant for the first time are given a copy of the pregnancy book?

Leaflets are pointless - they are not going to get through to the target audience.

Those of us who do not have a drinking problem will choose not to drink or to strictly moderate our intake. Everyone knows drinking is not recommended. No need for a leaflet about it.

Those people with a drinking problem are hardly going to get over their dependency just because they have read a leaflet. They need proper professional help. It is hardly surprising with some of the attitudes about that these women pretend they did not know they were pregnant rather than getting the help they need.

sardinequeen I didn't say that the US attitude was right, just demonstrating the massive differences between different places, in my experience hardly anything has been even said about alcohol and in some states in the US it's considered such a big deal that you can be put in jail for drinking.
I do not agree with the whole 'pre pregnant' thing, that's just weird and does make women just sound like baby making machines but I just think the message isn't getting through to some women.
I once met a pregnant pissed girl at a party who said she was drinking because ''I'm only 17 I'm not gonna give up my life just because I'm pregnant''. Well for a start she shouldn't be drinking at 17 but I think if she was fully informed about the affects of alcohol on babies then she may have had a different opinion.
She is not alone in her attitude.

The pregnancy book has been discontinued I believe. Some areas might still have a stock that they are using up.

Why is this US prison thing being brought up? It is like having a thread about remembering to put sun hats on children and pointing out that in some countries women are lashed if they don't cover their head.

crunchfrog thanks for that info. I was trying to remember what the wider one (that had a more controversial dx) was called.

The children I have known with FAS have very distinctive facial features and charactieristics. I had a dear little nephew for a short time and he was a classic example of a child with FAS. Beautiful little thing but such a sad, sad story and not for here.

No amount of literature would have stopped his mother from drinking or leaving the babies she didnt want (the brown ones) at the hospital.

The mothers that are problem drinkers are usually abusing other substances as well. It is not always easy to work out the affects of each toxin. Their lives tend to be chaotic and ante natal care sporadic, nutrition bad and general health poor.

I'm really sad about the purple book. I got
One and I'm 8 months pregnant [terrified]

I found it do useful!!!

They want to keep the bounty packs out of my face though, they do my nut in lol

how do you 100% know the parent drank in the pregnancy.

many people know you shouldn't eat liver or paté soft boiled egg.......yet people do when they are pregnant.

I looked up the author of that article linked earlier. (Actually blog would be a better description) The author has no scientific or medical qualifications to give it any credence.

I've just completed a module for my degree entirely on autism. It covered diagnosis, research, interventions, biology, genetics, neuroanatomy amongst other things. It also covered other conditions which come up when looking at autism such as epilepsy, ADHD, fragile x syndrome and others. Not once does it mention fetal alcohol syndrome. Not once.

Connecting fetal alcohol syndrome to autism = junk science.

Just picking up on what Op said about "she could tell that (this woman) was pregnant 3 months ago"

How? How could you "tell"? Clearblue should be panicking in that case, you'd make a fortune

And I think you are judgemental.

Regarding the 'paper' which missduff cited, I am examined it and sadly it falls short by a long way.

The problem is that nobody knows what does cause autism but it has been shown that mercury does not cause autism. It seems like the author of the paper has failed to keep up with the field.

But the mercury problem is a minor one compared with the big problem, I see nothing in the paper which links alcohol with autism. No evidence is presented to show a link between the two things.

I could come up with the idea that autism could be caused by cuckoo clocks. I am free to have a hypothesis (however outlandish), but in a serious scientific paper I must either test the hypothesis by experiment or present a compelling arguement based on evidence.

The paper does neither

I studied autism fairly specifically at Uni too. The fact that you could even think about equating it with FAS merely highlights your ignorance.

Judgemental too. Nice.