Fetal alcohol syndrome

• April 19, 2024

Since the expression was coined 40 years ago, fetal alcohol syndrome has been gradually recognized as a problem of public health . Alicestine October reports from the Western Cape, in South Africa, where the highest rate of incidence of this syndrome in the world is recorded.

Consume alcohol excess during pregnancy can lead to a spontaneous abortion or a variety of disabilities known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, of which the most serious is fetal alcohol syndrome.

Children with this disorder are born with characteristic physical and mental defects, such as short stature , small head and brain .

There's no cure. Treatment is based primarily on mental health services and medical services to manage the resulting lifelong disabilities, which include learning difficulties , behavior problems and language, delayed acquisition of social or motor skills, memory problems and attention deficit.

"It is estimated that in this country at least one million people have fetal alcohol syndrome and approximately 5 million they have some facet of that syndrome and (other) disorders of the fetal alcohol spectrum. It is tragic because it is a totally avoidable problem, "says the researcher and geneticist Denis Viljoen in Cape Town, the capital of the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

Some children with fetal alcohol syndrome are not diagnosed because they are adopted or sheltered in other families and their new parents do not know the history of chronic alcohol abuse of his mother, activists say. In the specific case of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders other than fetal alcohol syndrome, affected children may resemble other children, but their "difficult" behavior may be misinterpreted if they have not been diagnosed disorder.