Foetal alchohol effects

The World Today - Australian mothers ignore alcohol warnings:

"I don't think there's been any studies that show that one drink a day is likely to cause any adverse effects in a baby. The reality is, to end up with a baby with full-blown foetal alcohol syndrome, you'd probably need to have 8 drinks a day every day throughout pregnancy, pretty much, and I mean most women do not drink like that. I mean, the women that do are chronic alcoholics."

This is a condition we hear very little about and from what I have read over a number of years now, it can create quite an impact on someone's ife. There have been a number of studies to suggest achohol during pregancy can have a number of physical, mental and behavioural effets on a child. It can contribute to difficult to manage children. It can contribute to children who show a tendency to be alcohol or drug dependent and this interview talks about mental health issues. My own belief is we have largely ignored it because we are too frightened to acknowledge that drinking , pregnant women exist in our society. I think we are also frightened about unleashing court cases which will then subvert any reasonal approach to solving the problem. We need to know more. Avoiding it is not dealing with it and it is unfair on children to have "symptoms" which can be identified as part of this syndrome to be neglected and receive no help and support because we don't have the courage to come out and deal with it. We have probably dealt with the toughest child problems ...those pf pedophelia and child pornogrpahy. We have finally dared to deal with those. Well, let's get this information out into the open and help both the women who need to drink while they are pregnant and the children who are affected by it. And let's clarify whether the women have a problem or any drinking during pregnancy can be a problem. Let's inform ourselves and give ourselves a chance.