Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Research Papers on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Introduction

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a mental, physical or any growth problems that may happen in a fetus because of drinking alcohol by the mother during the period of pregnancy. This syndrome is a series of any physical or mental defects or retardation that develops in the baby and for that many recent researches are implicating several choices and options of lifestyles made by pregnant mothers for reducing the rate of these defects in the babies. This syndrome also has some indications regarding the lower levels of drugs or alcohol in taking also Sampson, 1997). The common influences of taking drugs are permanent damage to the nervous system, particularly the brain. During pregnancy, the intake of alcohol by mothers can increase a hazard of damage of the fetal brain at any time of pregnancy as brain development is continued throughout overall pregnancy.

Discussion

Due to the exposure of prenatal alcohol or drugs can be interrupted development and malformation of structures and of brain cells and then this malformation can form an array of some basic functional and cognitive retardation and disabilities such as impulsive behavior, attention deficits, poor memory, and poor reasoning of stimulus-response and also some secondary sorts of retardations and disabilities such as drug addiction, and other mental disorders.

Symptoms of FAS

There are many symptoms and signs of the Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome.

Facial features

In the patients with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, it has been often seen some craniofacial characteristics of abnormalities. The existence of FAS craniofacial characteristics occurs due to brain damage during pregnancy and brain damage can also occur without depicting any craniofacial abnormality. The Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has some visible but non-diagnostic features and deformities which are believed to be occurred mostly in the tenth and twentieth weeks of the gestation. Refinements in the area of diagnosis have yielded 3 diagnostically important but distinctive facial characteristics discovered as the consequences of prenatal alcoholic exposures since 1975. These refinements also distinguish this syndrome from several other kinds of mental disorders. The three facial features regarding FAS are:

Smooth philtrum which is the groove between the upper lip and nose as it flattens due to increased alcohol exposure during pregnancy.

Thin vermilion is the thinning of upper lip due to increased alcohol exposure during pregnancy.

A palpebral fissure is the decreased Eye width due to increased alcohol exposure during pregnancy.

Growth deficiency

The Growth deficiency is referred as some below than average growth of the child regarding weight and height and these deficiencies occur because of high exposure of prenatal alcohol, and it can be evaluated at any time in the entire life. The measurement of growth should be same as the parental average weight and height for a pre-mature baby and several other post-natal issues such as obesity and poor nutritional dieting. These kinds of deficiencies are documented as H191 in cases when the average weight or height falls somewhat below or at the tenth percentile of the standardized charts of growth in proportion to patient's ...