Category: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FAS/FASD)
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Knowledge Is Power, and More Is Readily Available through Neonate Screening for Drugs of Abuse
Every single baby born in the US is required to be screened for phenylketonuria (PKU), which is “a rare condition in which a baby is born without the ability to properly break down an amino acid called phenylalanine” (Medline). Annually in the US, 1 in every 10,000 to 15,000 babies born is diagnosed with PKU…
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Test It, and You Will Know
How many people have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs)? Mental illness? Substance use disorders (SUDs)? The disease of addiction? …in the US? What about in Canada? The United Kingdom? Czechoslovakia? We think we have statistics, but as everyone knows, statistics lie. As an example, think about surveying a community regarding whether or not a sports…
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Syphilis or FASDs? Why Not Address Both?
Wisconsin is having a spate of congenital syphilis cases, so much so that Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services issued a memo to healthcare providers, including health departments and tribal health clinics, about the need to test pregnant people for the bacteria that causes the infection. The memo indicates that “The number of congenital syphilis cases…
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Cold Cuts, Sushi, and Alcohol
I googled the three questions below and copied the first answer that popped up: “Can I eat cold cuts while I’m pregnant?” “The safest course of action to protect your baby is to avoid deli meats until after pregnancy. If you plan to eat deli meats anyway, we highly suggest cooking them until they are steaming.…
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Worst Outcomes for Babies
Two noteworthy articles bleeped onto my radar on the same day recently. The first was a post about “Alcohol Use, Screening, and Brief Intervention Among Pregnant Persons — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, 2017 and 2019” and the other was “2023’s Best & Worst States to Have a Baby” from WalletHub. I fully realize that WalletHub is…
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Bias Against Babies
Bias is defined as “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” This topic comes up often regarding testing pregnant patients for misuse of drugs. For example, in April 2023, JAMA reported that “Black patients, regardless of history of substance use,…
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Legal ≠ Harmless
Somehow along the way, we’ve made a distinction between “hard” drugs and, well, other drugs, as though only “hard” drugs cause problems. We’ve forgotten that those other, less “hard” drugs are also dangerous. We’ve also stopped thinking of alcohol as a drug at all, despite it being one of the most abused and dangerous drugs…
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We Can’t Treat It If We Don’t Test For It
The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), is designed to “address the needs of infants born with and identified as being affected by substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms resulting from prenatal drug exposure, or a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.” The Act is an effort to, in part, address the health and substance use…
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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder Guest Editorial
I was privileged to write a guest commentary in October 2022 for Kenosha’s most interesting daily newspaper. I hope you’ll give it a read! https://www.kenoshanews.com/opinion/columnists/guest-commentary-parkland-shooters-defense-strategy-hurts-fasd-study/article_b5bbdf4e-4e37-11ed-8f2c-effacdf01e54.html
Guided by Guida 