Alcohol and pregnancy don’t mix

YOUR Alcohol and Ireland supplement, and follow-up booklet, provided much-needed core reading about most issues arising from the use of the substance.

Might I respectfully suggest an addendum, a special feature on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, (FASDs), which pans out to be much more than one of the conditions, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome alone, which was mentioned in the booklet?

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome only comprises 10%-15% of FASDs. The remaining 85%-90% of those with fetal alcohol conditions do not present with dysmorphic features at birth and will not be recognised as having been affected. They will, however, go on to have any or all of the following challenges — attention deficit, (with or without hyperactivity), autistic, learning, cognitive, and psychiatric problems, most particularly as they start to flounder in school at around nine or 10 years of age when the curriculum gets a bit more abstract, if not before. These telltale signs are secondary effects which obscure their origins — organic brain damage from prenatal alcohol exposure.

All alcohol reaches the fetus, but Ireland has been very slow to address this quintessential piece of optimal outcome health promotion. There is no proven safe amount/level of alcohol, and no stage of pregnancy proven safe for its consumption, just as there is no safe level of alcohol for a newborn or any infant.

Awareness and prevention are two important aspects of fetal alcohol, but Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders are not being recognised in this country for what they are, nor to the extent at which they prevail. The tragedy of it all is that they are avoidable. Psychiatry recognises the role of the brain both in mental wellbeing and in mental illness, and it is so important that people know that alcohol is not of benefit in pregnancy, and that it can and does cause unnecessary lifelong problems for a child.

Michele Savage

FASD Ireland

Dublin 12