A free session about mother’s drinking whilst pregnant and the side effects that can have on their babies was held at the Collie Hospital last Thursday, September 13.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder refers to the range of problems that occur when a mother exposes her unborn baby to alcohol during pregnancy.
The effects of alcohol on a fetus include harm to the development of the fetal nervous system, including the brain, under-nourishment of the growing baby, triggering of changes in the development of the baby’s face, resulting in the typical FASD facial features.
Some of these facial features can be a smaller head, a thin upper lip, an underdeveloped jaw, small eye openings, a flat mid-face and epicanthal folds which are skin folds of the upper eyelid covering the inner corner of the eye.
GP Down South Aboriginal health worker trainee Miranda Kelleher who gave the presentation said the condition was preventable but not curable.
“If a woman drinks alcohol while she is pregnant, the alcohol crosses into the placenta from her bloodstream and then into the babies bloodstream. Within an hour or two the fetus will have a blood alcohol concentration to that of the mother,” she said.
”Over time that alcohol stays there so the child is practically bathing in alcohol.”
As alcohol contains teratogens, which is an agent that can disturb the development of an embryo or fetus it is not safe to drink alcohol at any stage while pregnant.
She said if women were heavy drinkers while pregnant that there was also a high chance of miscarriage.
Collie Hospital Aboriginal liaison officer Karen Brisbane said she went to the session to debunk some of the myths behind the disorder.
“I found it very useful but I think it needs to be delivered at a different level in the community, mainly because you’ve got people with medical health backgrounds here, so I think people with a different level of understanding would be good,” Mrs Brisbane said.
Local Raewyn Jones said she came to the session to learn more about what one of her foster children may be experiencing.
“I came because I have been fostering a couple of young men for about 15 years and one of them I suspect is an un-diagnosed FASD and it was just interesting to learn what might have occurred to him and why he is who he is, to understand him and love him just the same,” she said.
A Fitzroy Valley study several years ago found one in eight children born from a group of communities between 2002 and 2003 had the disorder.
A 2018 report found more than one in three juveniles in Banksia Hill Detention Centre had the disorder.
