Prenatal and Postnatal Consequences of Maternal Substance Abuse
Pedro J. Lecca, Thomas D. Watts in Preschoolers and Substance Abuse, 2014
The research done on maternal substance abuse has been in the area of prenatal and perinatal effects on the child, and since the ability to get pregnant is exclusively female this is a beginning in understanding the complex motives in female substance abuse and how to prevent and treat it. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, reports from health officials are indicating the impact that alcohol and other drugs are having on mothers and their children. Some physical anomalies characteristic of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) would indicate that the damage occurs in the first trimester but birth weight is achieved in the final trimester. A population which is the least visible one affected by alcoholism and substance abuse is preschool children of substance abusers from birth to school age. Substance abuse prevention programs targeted at preschool children are scarce in the literature, have not existed long, and, thus, have very limited evaluation strategies.
Primary Zinc Depletion
Stephen C. Cunnane in Zinc: Clinical and Biochemical Significance, 2018
Zinc depletion can be subdivided into three basic categories according to etiology: primary, secondary, or acute. Primary zinc depletion is of dietary origin. Secondary zinc depletion involves defective handling of zinc by the individual. Acute zinc depletion is usually a physiological phenomenon of no long-term risk to a healthy individual. Primary zinc depletion has three possible causes: low intake of food containing adequate amounts of zinc, consumption of food low in zinc, or a combination of low intake of foods containing low amounts of zinc. Primary zinc depletion is implicit in malnutrition whether it be kwashiorkor, failure of any infant to successfully breast-feed, or malnutrition caused by alcoholism, poverty, or starvation. Zinc depletion during pregnancy causes fetal malnutrition or intrauterine growth retardation, but it responds well to zinc supplementation. Fetal alcohol syndrome may be a consequence of primary zinc deprivation of the fetus, but the true relationship between alcohol and zinc with respect to fetal growth is as yet unclear.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome
Janet M Rennie, Giles S Kendall in A Manual of Neonatal Intensive Care, 2013
Substance abuse during pregnancy has effects on the health of the mother, the pregnancy, the fetus and the newborn infant. In addition there are associations between drug addiction, alcohol misuse, HIV, hepatitis B/C infection, unemployment/poverty, squalid accommodation, parental imprisonment and social isolation, all of which present a threat to babies cared for by these chaotic families. Although binge drinkers are likely to produce babies with fetal alcohol syndrome or abstinence syndrome, a study from Scotland among women without associated problems such as malnutrition and drug abuse showed no ill effects from social alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI) are widely used antidepressants known to cause symptoms in the newborn. Infants exposed to third-trimester SSRIs or SNRIs may suffer withdrawal, with predominantly central nervous system symptoms within 24 hours of birth which usually resolve spontaneously within a few days and are rarely serious.
Fetal Alcohol Disorder in the French Addiction Management System
Published in International Journal of Mental Health, 2014
Prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause serious birth defects, of which fetal alcohol syndrome is the most severe and visible. In addition to structural abnormalities, such as facial dysmorphia and organ malformation, fetal alcohol syndrome is associated with constantly present neurocognitive deficits. Many cases, however, lack the characteristic facial defects and growth deficiency but present the secondary neurocognitive disabilities. These compromised neurological capabilities are responsible for learning disabilities and maladaptive social behaviors that have grave consequences on the family, professional, social and judicial aspects the individuals’ future. The secondary disabilities experienced as a result of prenatal exposure to alcohol can increase an individual’s vulnerability to substance abuse, which may at some point in life lead the individual to seek assistance at addiction treatment centers. Public health professionals need to anticipate this need and implement measures for the prevention, examination, and structures for the support and orientation of these individuals. Alcohol is well established as a teratogenic drug, and in France in 2014, this validation was sufficient to recommend against all maternal alcohol consumption.
The emergence of the foetus: discourses on foetal alcohol syndrome prevention and compulsory treatment in Finland
Published in Critical Public Health, 2012
The scientific discovery of foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in the early 1970s made pregnant women's heavy alcohol consumption problematic. A growing concern over prenatal alcohol intake has made FAS a major public health issue in the developed western countries and led to the proliferation of practices that aim to prevent it. This article provides a Nordic perspective on the existing and largely North American literature on the politics of FAS prevention. This article analyses how the proposal to use the compulsory treatment of pregnant women as an FAS prevention tool emerged and became a disputed political issue in Finland. The analysis is qualitative and the data consists of medical journals and political documents between the end of the 1970s and the 1990s. This article depicts how the foetus was constructed as a subject needing protection and how the prominence of the foetus served as justification for the demands for compulsory measures. This article argues that the strong professional status of the medical advocates of compulsory measures and the position of the foetus as an ‘ideal victim’ gave weight to demands for compulsory treatment. However, it is suggested that the public health approach that characterised Finnish alcohol and welfare policy made the compulsory care of pregnant women a controversial issue. This article concludes that during the study period, the Finnish FAS prevention discourse became increasingly individualised and focused on the foetus.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Implications for Health Education
Published in Journal of Health Education, 1993
Even though it has been known since Biblical times that alcohol ingestion during pregnancy was harmful to the developing fetus, it was not until the mid-1970s that fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) was described accurately in the medical literature. Since that time, a significant amount of biomedical research has been conducted in order to more clearly define the causal mechanism involved in FAS and to more fully document the effects of alcohol on the fetus. At this point the most critical research and application needs lie in the area of primary prevention. After reviewing the recent literature with regard to the magnitude of the FAS problem and the reported cause and effect relationships, this article attempts to outline a program of primary prevention for FAS. Implications for health educators in a variety of settings are discussed.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Birth Defects
- Ethanol
- Fetus
- Uterus
- Fetal Therapies
- Alcohol-Induced Disorders
- Fetal Diseases