IANATeacher, although my mother is, and has had a few FAS students. It’s in their records, from their doctors.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be condescending by posting information. Just trying to help.
“There is no safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.”
“Avoid alcohol entirely for 3 months prior to getting pregnant and during the entire pregnancy.”
Dangerosa, as WhyNot mentioned, I knew they were FAS because it was in their files, because their special ed. teachers told me when we were going over their IEPs, etc. I had no idea people tried that stuff with adopted/foster kids. Sounds a bit like how folks love to slap ADHD labels on every excitable student.
WhyNot, I’m a bit confused; you don’t think I meant that people over 35 shouldn’t have kids, right? I was simply comparing one form of disability to another to give an idea of how many kids with FAS I’ve seen over the years.
I have to wonder if these zero-tolerance assertions do more harm than good. They remind me of the mindless anti-drug propaganda that has afflicted this country for decades. Why can’t patient education be based on facts and scientific data, rather than unfounded speculation?
Don’t live in Denver! It only takes one cosmic ray to turn your future child into a hideous monster!
Ya know how ingrained in our culture this “pregnant women shouldn’t drink” idea is? I got hassled about it by my ***four year old *** stepdaughter. I wasn’t actually drinking alcohol, I was drinking an IBC root beer. It comes in a brown glass bottle, and if you’re four and can’t read, it looks just like a regular beer bottle. She saw me drinking one when I was 7 or 8 months pregnant, gasped, and exclaimed in an incredulous tone, “Can MOMMIES drink BEER?” If even a four year old feels like she must say something about it, any visibly pregnant woman who orders a drink and doesn’t expect a hassle is pretty naive.
It’s a very curious thing to me how there is a tendency in Americans (there are of course numerous exceptions and plenty frequent this board) to fanatically defend personal freedom above any other good but throw that philosophy out the window the minute a foetus enters the scene.
Therefore, chiming in, waiter please mind own business.
I recall a case years ago (somewhere in the US - have no idea where/when, or how to find a site.
A 8.99 months-Pregnant women enter a bar and ordered a (gasp!) alcoholic beverage - both the barkeep and a waitress gave her tons of “You can’t do that - think of the fetus” crap, even after the customer had said she was aware of the risks, and still wanted a drink. (excuse me folks, but if she can legally dring alcohol, it really not your concern- just poor the drink).
In one of the “justice is actually served” scenes, the manager was summoned to the bar - whereupon he immediately fired the barkeep and waitress.
Bravo for him! It is not up to the waitstaff to tell a customer what she can order - this is one of the of the examples which redeem (almost) faith in the species.
Dear waitrons - it is NOT your position to dictate your judgement to the customer - you are there to sell booze - just do it or resign, OK?
No, no, you’re in the clear. Merely pointing out that if a person were to indicate public disapproval of a woman over 35 for being pregnant, he could rightly expect to get bitch-slapped. (When in fact, Down’s Syndrome due to advanced maternal age is a far greater risk than FAS from a glass of wine late in pregnancy.) I was paralleling (is that even a word?) it to the situation in the OP.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I don’t, for the record, think women should be prevented from having babies later in life, nor should they be chastised for it. It does have its risks, however small, as does drinking alcohol. But those risks are up to each woman (and perhaps her doctor) to weigh and make an informed decision.
I really shouldn’t talk - my wife is approaching her third trimester and she hasn’t had a drink since she stoped taking her birth control (not that she was ever much of a drinker to begin with). But if I were the bartender I would have refused, too. In all likelihood, nothing would happen, bit I just wouldn’t want anything on my conscience. She has a right to do whatever she wants - but so would I.
Alessan,
I’d make a poor bartender, too.
I don’t want to contribute to anyone’s alcoholism
I don’t want someone I serve to go have a fatal car accident
I don’t want someone to get drunk and abuse their spouse or children.
Why is pregnancy different? If you can’t handle the downside of a job, maybe you are in the wrong career.
to balance kung fu lola’s cites:
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol-info/FAS/FAS.html
This study is my favorite because its so counterintuitive to what we are taught:
A study of pregnancies in eight European countries found that consuming no more than one drink per day did not appear to have any effect on fetal growth. A follow-up of children at 18 months of age found that those from women who drank during pregnancy, even two drinks per day, scored higher in several areas of development.
As Alice has been saying, this is far from cut and dried
But in those jurisdictions where businesses are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of sex, there’s a good argument that refusing to server the drink on the basis of pregnancy would be sex-based discrimination, since the ability to be pregnant is one of the key sexual traits of women. Also, the server’s attitude assumes that the server knows better than the woman what’s best for her, which treats her with considerably less dignity and autonomy than other persons - again, based on her sex and particular situation.
Would depend, of course, on the particular law of the jurisdiction in question.
We’re told to tell pregnant women that they should avoid alcohol, but if having a glass of wine every day is going to make them less stressed and anxious than having one, they should drink the wine.
Getting a preganat woman (especially a very heavily pregnant woman) upset and anxious by not serving her a glass of wine is probably going to do more harm to her baby than the wine itself.
Since medical opinion (and research) says a glass of wine is OK, who is the bartender to say otherwise?
Dangerosa - I’m not saying that your child does or does not have FASD - I’ve never met either of you, so I have no idea. A couple of things I do know, however:
FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder - it’s no longer properly refered to as FAS because of the wide variance of symptoms and impairments) occurs along a spectrum - mild cases may never be diagnosed, or may be diagnosed as other learning diabilitys or conduct disorders. However, severe cases have a pronounced difference in brain arcitecture (see here and herehttp://www.fas-region3.com/FASE.html) - scroll about half way down and click the "Brain of Normal Baby vs FASD baby link), as well as a well documented set of visual and behaviour cues for diagnosis.
How exactly a fetus gets it is kind of unclear - however, once the child is born with it, it’s fairly straightforward to diagnose it.
Mine doesn’t, he is a perfectly healthy kid (well, except for cat allergies and a history of febrile seizures). I’ve just noticed in adoption circles that FAE and FAS is often diagnosed - without having any history of the pregnancy - in other words, they assume alcohol is the culprit without knowing. I’ve never heard of anyone having the brain scan done - diagnosis is often made by behavior and learning disabilities. Although a lot of adopted kids do have FAS (you can’t control another woman’s pregnancy - and not all birthmothers are paragons of the ideal pregnancy) - I think its being overdiagnosed. And I KNOW FAE diagnosis is problematic in adoption circle - because FAE doesn’t have any physical traits. Somehow it seems unfair to me to blame drinking by the birthmother when you don’t know if she drank or not - unless you can prove cause and effect.
Are there any other causes for similar loss of brain tissue? Or is this unique to fetal alcohol exposure?
Well, I’m not a neurologist (perhaps one will be along soon?) - however, my understanding is that FASD results in a unique set of brain annomilies which are easily identified on a PET scan or CT.
Regarding diagnosis - ADHD I can believe is overdiagnosed. Oppositional Defiant Disorder I can believe is overdiagnosed. FASD, on the other hand, has a rather exclusionary set of criteria - particularly facial anomilies that are not present in other conditions. That being said, I know that mild cases of FASD are often misdiagnosed as ADHD or ODD in the early stages of treatment, because of the similarity of behaviour problems. However, generally ADHD and ODD respond to certain types of therapies which are not effective in FASD cases (ritalin, for instance, would not help an FASD child, unless the child also had ADHD Yikes!)
In fact, I would be inclined to think that FASD was Under diagnosed, or misdiagnosed.
Been following along, and I’m kind of glad to see that the general consensus seems to be that K was well-intentioned, but somewhat wrong. I may eventually point him in the direction of this thread to forestall future occurrences, but after that incident, I don’t think too many pregnant women will be entering K’s bar.
But it’s also been educational, I must say. Thanks for the replies so far, and I’ll look forward to reading more as they come.
Actually, I think I would amend that to “well-intentioned, but totally wrong.”
Honestly, a woman who is drinking heavily and is visibally pregnant was probably drinking heavily when she wasn’t visibally pregnant - that is, the damage is already done.
Further, I think most people would object less if the woman had drank 10 glasses of wine and he balked at serving her the 11th one - if you wanna get pissed, personally I think you should do it at home, pregnant or not. However, commenting on the woman’s drink selection, within her earshot, based on eronious information, guesses and bad feelings was totally obnoxious and totally wrong.
IMHO. 
Thanks, Alice. Based on that information, I’m suspecting that what I am seeing is parents and perhaps peditricians blaming alcohol for learning disabilities (the peditrician may never use the words FAS - I’m talking to the parents who are just telling me their kid has FAS), and the parents then classify their kids as FAS. I’ve met some of these kids (others I’ve seen pictures of), and most don’t have the facial abnormalities (at least, not to my untrained eye) that I’ve seen - i.e. you don’t look at these kids and say “something is wrong.” (One, you do look at at say, “something is wrong” - even with his hard to read Asian face - and his mother calls it FAS - and I find that believable).
i.e. Mom goes into the peditrician with Bobby who is seven and is having trouble learning to read and paying attention in class and says “what is wrong with my child and why” Doctor hems and haws - says something about “do you know if his birthmother drank, that might have had an impact on his IQ, ability to pay attention, ability to learn, etc?” Mom grabs that information (she, like us, may not have any information on the pregnancy one way or the other) and runs. The correct answer might be “Bobby is a seven year old boy and not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree” but that answer doesn’t appease mom.
If you look down the CDC list, all of them, except the facial abnomalities, are also considered as effects of institutionalization. And, ADHD has been proven to be more common in adopted kids (apparently there is a genetic link and ADHD people are theorized to be more likely to have unplanned pregnancies that result in adoption).
Well, the other thing I wonder is if your cohort is self-selecting. I don’t actually know the numbers, but perhaps there is a higher instance of FASD in adopted children - this doesn’t strike me as totally improbable - I imagine a woman with a drinking problem severe enough to have an FASD baby could also be ruled an unfit mother and have her child removed, or decide of her on volition that raising a child may not be the best choice for her now.