Fetal Alcohol awareness
The day is marked in countries around the world and organizers are enlisted to promote awareness about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. FASD awareness organizers picked the ninth day of the ninth month for obvious reasons and the focus on nine continues throughout the campaign.
“Proclamations are issued in countries, states, provinces, and towns all around the world,” the FASD Awareness Day website notes. “Bells are rung at 9:09 a.m. in every time zone from New Zealand to Alaska. People all around the world gather for events to raise awareness about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy and the plight of individuals and families who struggle with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).”
The day was first celebrated on 9/9/1999 and has been marked each year since. Marlene Dray of the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute in Saskatoon, Canada, told the Regina Leader-Post this week that women of all incomes and ethnicities are susceptible to drinking during pregnancy.
Some may not know that any amount of alcohol during pregnancy is unsafe, others have pressures turning them toward drinking. Dray said it’s important not to shame pregnant women, but it is also important to get the word out that no amount is safe and even while trying to conceive it is best to abstain from drinking alcohol.
“If a woman is planning to become pregnant, the best time to stop drinking is when trying to conceive,” she told Leader-Post reporter Pamela Cowan. “That way her developing baby cannot be exposed to alcohol.”
Developing baby and alcohol
If a pregnant woman drinks, alcohol passes through the umbilical cord into the developing baby and health care professionals say when you drink, your baby drinks. The result can be physical problems at birth and beyond, mental and behavioural problems, and a combination of all of them.
The Fasworld.com website says FAS disorders worldwide “are the biggest single cause of mental disabilities in most industrialized countries” and that it is estimated that around “1% of North Americans suffer from a fetal alcohol disorder – about four times as many people as those with AIDS/HIV.”
Experts urge that pregnant women who are drinking and become aware of the harm they may be doing are still advised to stop. Any time is the right time to stop drinking while pregnant, they say.
“If a woman is drinking alcohol during pregnancy, it is never too late to stop drinking,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes. “Because brain growth takes place throughout pregnancy, the sooner a woman stops drinking the safer it will be for her and her baby.”
