Really panicky and upset that I have caused DS1's disability - please help!

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I know many of you know me and sorry I haven't been on the SN site for a while and also that I am going over old ground because I have mentioned this before but I have just read an article about a child with foetal alcohol syndrome and all her symptoms are similar to my DS's who has global developmental delay. He does have some "syndromous" behaviour too, like holding his hands and the doctors have always said it is genetic, though we have had tests and nothing has ever been diagnosed.

I drank wine during my pregnancy with him, I really can't remember how much but I know that it can't have been anything at all after about 8 weeks until about 16 weeks because I couldn't eat anything let alone drink and then I remember having a glass of wine with dinner on and off throughout the rest of the pregnancy, on occasions several times a week, but never more than one glass, I never felt even tipsy, ever. I had a book that said up to 10 units a week was ok, and I know I never went over that - it was never even as much as that, but at the time I wasn't aware of the dangers so I really can't remember thinking too much about it.

I remember when someone cracked open the champagne after DS was born I didn't want any, didn't fancy it and I remember thinking at the time that it would be weird drinking wine again, so I couldn't have had any for a while at that point. I was funny with food throughout the pregnancy, certain foods made me feel sick at times so I can't imagine I was drinking that regularly.

When I mentioned it to the doctors they just dismissed it and said FAS is caused by heavier drinking than that.

But now I am really really upset and anxious, what with the new guidelines, that I could have done this to DS.

Please help!

Your doctor is right. There is absolutely NO evidence that moderate drinking causes FAS. And believe me, there have been thousands of studies on this - if there was any relationship, it would have been discovered by now.

The new guidelines are actually designed to give a very clear, simple message, to discourage heavy drinkers who might have taken comfort in the old message and told themselves they didn't really drink that much (you know how some people deny how much they drink? It's like smoking, doctors routinely assume someone who admits to ten a day really smokes 20).

So they are telling everyone not to drink in order to catch those who drink to excess. You are NOT responsible for your son's SEN, truly.

PS The paed also said that FAS has some specific physical symptoms and that as DS1 is a "normal" looking child he didn't have it.

Bless you edam, I am crying with relief at this. I guess I have always just carried this guilt with me.

Edam is absolutely right

you have nothing to blame yourself for

it is not your fault

Pages, I have 2 DDs with teenage scoliosis and DS with autistic traits - you can imagine that I have gone over everything I did whilst pregnant and while they were young looking for some reason. Like you I did drink moderately during pregnancy and the latest recommendations raised that guilty feeling again. However you will find with time that you realise that it is just one of those things and very likely genetic (either inherited or a spontaneous mutation)or due to the birth or some other factor beyond your control. I think I read somewhere that we all carry about 30 genetic 'diseases' that only show up if your partner has one too. How old is your DS?

Oh Pages, I really feel for you. I felt terribly guilty when I was p/g with ds because I have epilepsy and was terrified he'd have spina bifida (associated with anti-elileptic drugs but docs think on balance better to take the drugs because risks of seizure to mother and baby worse than risks of abnormality). I was on the medicine that is least likely to cause it, but you never know... fortunately ds is fine.

I think it's a normal human thing to look for reasons why bad things happen, and to try to attribute blame. We don't like randomness - that's why religions are so popular. But you really, really, really have nothing to do with your son's SEN. Honest.

FAS is caused by being an alcoholic while you are pregnant sweetheart, if your level of alcohol use caused FAS, one in two babies would be born with it.

I really understand the desperate search for a proper reason, but you are not to blame.

Thank you, thank you. I have stopped hyperventilating now! DS1 is 4.9, he is physically mobile (although delayed - he is at about the same stage as DS2 who is nearly 2) but he has no speech and his fine motor skills are very poor. He was put on epilim as a baby (for absence seizures) which had a very clear and profound effect on him, and his birth was very traumatic so there are other factors in play but I had largely come to terms with it just being "one of those things". But every time alcohol in pregancy pops up in the media it sparks off the guilt...

Thanks for all your kind words, it has really helped.

Are the effects of epilim still with him? Is he still taking anything? Just asking because very, very rarely, someone can have an allergy to epilim. Happened to a boy I knew.

Pages hun,

It is NOT your fault. Repeat after me!!.

I did not drink during my pg but my son has developmental delay. Goodness only knows, I examined my pg to the nth degree. I was subsequently told by a developmental paed who I trust implicitly that I was not to "blame" or "was at any fault" and to banish any thoughts of same from my mind. I was shown a pie chart; many cases of such delays have unknown cause.

I always remember this phrase - natures loves diversity, humans hate it.

Okay, message received and understood!!

Thanks, guys, am going to print this thread off and keep it by the TV so I can look at it every time I watch the morning news and there isn't actually any real news that day so they dredge up another ridiculous survey that reveals that we are all terrible parents because...we put our children in childcare, drank in pregnancy, let them watch tv, etc. (even though they haven't actually discovered or proved anything new)

Seriously though, you have all really helped, I feel tons better. It's so easy to feed into the guilt, isn't it?

Edam, I don't know if you remember, but when I first joined mumsnet I asked about epilim and you came back and told me about your friend (was it Nicky? who was in the press at the time) who came back to the land of the living when he came off it. It was after discussing it with you lot that I told the neurologist I wanted to take DS1 off it. I also discovered DS1 was on twice the recommended dose and when they did blood tests there was a surplus of epilim in his body.

As soon as he came off it he "woke up" and immediately started to crawl and pick up toys and communicate (in his own nagging way!)after failing to develop at all for a year. I wanted to think at the time that the epilim was responsible for everything but DS1 is still very delayed so it obvioulsy wasn't the whole picture, but it definitely didn't help.

And no, he has had no medication since and had no fits (apart from a mild febrile convulsion a few months ago with a high fever). He doesn't have epilepsy of any type and we are now wondering if he ever did. They put him on it because he was delayed and supposedly having absence seizures but I have since heard that lots of small babies are a bit daydreamy and drift off with their eyes open when tired. I guess we will never know.

PS I am starting to agree with nature, Meerkats. I do often think to myself that I have one "bog standard" child (love him to bits though!)and one fascinating, unusual and interesting one.

Sympathies, pages.

I spent a couple of years convinced that i had caused Ds's leg condition by drinking water frozen in plastic bottles - until I found out recently that the whole thing was a horrible hoax.
But I have also endured sideswipe (imagined to be 'subtle' - oh please!!) comments from people about drinking during pg - I drank no more than one galss of wine a day on about 3 days a week), "it's probably because of your age" froma woman in a shop (yes, i was a mother in her early 40s) and....."It's god's punishment for your sins, all you can do is pray" - again from a woman in a shop!!

Everyone wants to look for causes, find a source of 'balme', and we mothers look for it within ourselves.

I wonder whether these days we cannot accept that mostly, we are at the mercy of nature. Our consultant said to us that at conception there are so many millions of processes taking place in the DNA that it is harly surprising that every so often it doesn't all fall perfectly into place.

Glad this thread has set your mind at rest - get on with being the good Mum you are!

Oh sweethreat, plaes stop beating yourself up.

There is no evidence that 'social' drinking in pregnancy causes birth defects.

FAS is caused when people drink vast amounts of alcohol.

Before I had my kids I was a Medical Information Officer for a major drug company. I did a literatute search at that time (when I was PG) on the effects of the social drinking.....there was none. A big analysis of all the data at the time, carried out by a highly respected group in Scandinavia shoed that there was no adverse effect of such drinking.

sometimes awful things happen just by chance. Not that this makes your ds' SN easier to deal with.....but you musy not beat yourself up over it.

And when people make stupid comments, it just shows that they are unthinking arseholes. Fuck 'em!

Pages, Blu, Fio: I'm so sorry.

People are vile sometimes.

Incidentally I drank like a fish for the first six weeks of my first pregnancy, and a fair bit after that.

If drinking in early PG was a problem, hardly anyone would be 'normal'....whatever normal is.

I am also amazed that DNA replication works as well as it does. When you think of all the things that has to happen.

Ineterstibgly I feel that as we know more and more about our genetic make up we will find that all of us carry defects and 'blips'. It is just that most of the time we are fortunate, and it isn't an issue. More and more I don't think that there is 'normal' I just think that there are people IYKWIM

I agree, MB. Whenever I've written anything on genetics (er, that should be 'whenever I've picked Tamum's brains extensively on genetics') I am amazed that it all links together at all, really.

Realised what you meant Fio! I too am at people's disgustingly rude comments. They are clearly people who have no idea about SN and the usual causes (or lack of). I haven't yet had any comments like that made to me, but will brace myself for them... so far the only person pointing he finger at me has been me!

Martianbishop, that is comforting to know - nice to have some scientific information to counteract all the media hype around this at the moment... what is a literatute survey btw?

I accessed lots of scientific/medical data bases, and searched them for any academic papers published on the effect of alcohol in PG.....think of it like a Google search, but limited to just scientific stuff IYSWIM.

Base on what I found, I drank the off glass of wine while PG. My kids are OK. In the endit is most often just bad luck if something goes wrong.

Pages I can understand your feelings, I had the odd drink when expecting ds2 & i recon during the first few weeks (before I knew) had more than I would if i'd known I was pregnant.
I have wondered many times if it caused ds2's disability, if it caused his premature birth as they could offer no reason why he was in such distress.
Deep down I think I know it had nothing to do with the odd glass of wine, but without ALL the answers its easy to blame yourself.
It really is not your fault.