Introduction

Throughout history from ancient Rome to ancient Greece Fetal alcohol syndrome has been a referenced disease. The first link between fetal deformities and the use of alcohol syndrome during pregnancy was made by Dr William Sullivan in 1899 who noted a higher still birth rate in alcoholic female prisoners than the sober prisoners. Since then it has become a classified named disease in 1973 when a study by Dr Kenneth Lyons Jones and Dr David W. Smith found the expression of the symptoms in groups of children from different ethnic backgrounds but all with alcoholic mothers.

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a group of permanent birth defects caused by exposure of the offspring to alcohol whilst in the womb. The severity and number of symptoms is thought to depend on the quantity of alcohol consumed, the number of times during the pregnancy it’s drank and the developmental stage that alcohol is consumed.

Professionals recommend that pregnant women do not drink throughout the pregnancy to stop the alcohol crossing the placenta and causing the vast number of symptoms from stunted growth to mental and behavioural problems. There is no cure as yet even though it is a more prevalent disease amongst new borns than downs syndrome or spina bifida in the United States.

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 Image courtesy of Flickr under creative commons license: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tirrell/149037991/