Talk:Fetal alcohol syndrome

This sentence doesn't make sense:
"The main effect of FAS is permanent central nervous system damage, especially to the brain." Whatever isn't central in the nervous system is not the brain since the brain is the central nervous system and what's not the central nervous system is the preiferal nervous system, that is the nervous system that is not a part of the brain. Sounds like Kyle's mom wrote that sentence to begin with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.213.206 (talk) 23:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, that sentence does "feel" a little awkward and could be re-worded. Please note, however, the CNS includes the brain and spinal cord, so the sentence does make sense. Some education in neuroscience would highlight the differences in the types of neurotransmitters and complexity of the pathways in these two gross sections of the CNS (e.g. GABA is found primarily in the brain, while the smaller, faster Glycine is found in the spinal cord); the distinction is actually a very important one if you wish to understand how FAS may exert its primary effect. An ethanol (alcohol) sensitive GABA receptor, for instance, has recently been identified, so one might expect a differential effect upon the brain and spinal cord.--Bthomas001 (talk) 01:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarify and distinguish FAS and FASD
The importance of having both this and the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder articles has been clearly articulated on Talk:Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. We'll be working on pruning and editing this article to improve it and separate it from the FASD article to have appropriate cross referencing, conformity to Wiki standards, and so forth, while paying attention to the importance of diagnostic versus functional similarities. Here's to a lot of great work to come, MLHarris 03:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I was a bit surprised to see that FASD was not included in a See also section of this article ... thus, I added it a few minutes ago. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:12, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Correcting GA
Fetal alcohol syndrome was awarded GA on August 10, 2006, by, who was subsequently blocked. Fetal alcohol syndrome was moved to an inaccurate article title&mdash;Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder&mdash; on January 12 2007. . The talk page, and GA, was also moved. Per discussion at Talk:Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, the correct name of the medical condition is Fetal alcohol syndrome. I am restoring the GA to the article upon which it was conferred. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 16:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I would also like to request that, since this appears to of just been some complicated misunderstanding about article titles, that nobody fail this article straight off of the GA page for the time being, it seemed pretty good at the time it was passed, even though it is of course now very unstable with everything being moved about. Homestarmy 17:01, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's not unstable at all. Everything has been consensual so far.  The discussion has been over how to fix this grand mess that was made by a faulty move.  We're trying to get it right; not really unstable at all.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, then I ultra don't support anyone delisting this article based on the mess of page moves :) . Homestarmy 17:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ready for copy edit
I think I've now removed most of the traces of FASD from the article, although I'm not clear how to eliminate the four diagnostic systems that aren't recognized. Once that is done, the next step might be to copyedit the article in order to prosify the overuse of the terms i.e., e.g., and etc. All of those abbreviations need to be converted to prose. Some attention to wikilinking may also be needed, per WP:CONTEXT. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 05:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Diagnostic systems and related items
Wow... lots of great work, and yet as I read it over, I struggle with the basic conceptualization of FAS as it relates to FASD and how to describe it in a way that incorporates good Wikipedia editing processes and still maintains accuracy and completeness. I think I have hit upon a metaphor with diabetes and pre-diabetes. The conditions are different but related and some aspects of each are the same (and perhaps should have their own article status). In this case, pre-diabetes typically precedes type 2 diabetes, but it is still a diabetic-related condition. A symptom of both is high blood sugar levels, and the same test (diagnostic procedure) is used for both--there isn't a separate test for diabetes and pre-diabetes, and yet diabetes requires more symptoms or more severe symptoms. The same is true of FAS and other FASD conditions (FAS is an FASD condition)--the same diagnostic systems are used to operationalize the (rather vague) ICD criteria of FAS; that which is not FAS is another condition (with no ICD diagnosis), but they are all a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FAS, PFAS, ARND, and the older terms FAE and ARBD)--just like diabetes and pre-diabetes are diabetic-type conditions (or, at the least, high blood sugar conditions). All four diagnostic systems diagnose FAS, but they also "diagnose" other conditions. The same is true of outcomes and treatment: The disabilities are the same--there is a range, of course, but someone with ARND (read, FASD) can have just as severe disabilities or worse as someone with FAS, just without the facial features or growth deficiencies. This also means the treatment strategy is the same for FAS as for other FASD conditions--the specifics are tailored to the individual differences/disabilities based on the functional problems that arise in each case. It isn't simply a matter of pruning a reference from either article because the condition is not in the title. A good example is Streisguth's book, titled "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome"--despite the title, the content of the book includes a lot of material on FAE (read, ARND in today's terms, and still an FASD condition based on 2004 terminology referenced in the IOM diagnostic document)--the title may say FAS, but FAE (and therefore FASD) information is in it, too. This is a strong challenge in general... explaining the condition in simplest terms--the field isn't there yet, but it is progressing. I think a possible way to address the commonalities between the FAS article and the FASD article is by having summaries and supporting articles on the diagnostic systems, outcomes, and treatment. The article as it is now is getting to be very much technically in shape and is certainly not inaccurate, but it is also less complete by having virtually no mention of FASD (the same is true of the FASD article to a greater degree). I hope this makes sense, as I am rushed to go to work, and I am truly sorry that I don't have long stretches of time to be more involved, but we'll get it soon enough. Thanks, MLHarris 14:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm rushing out for the day as well, ML; will get back on this tonight. Best, Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 14:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Alfred E. Neuman
Does Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of Mad magazine, manifest physical characteristics typical of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? Will someone familiar FAS please add the appropriate material to this article, and to the article on Alfred E. Neuman. Josh-Levin@ieee.org 14:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has non-physical and physical effects.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.84.0.210 (talk) 17:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Connection with Fairies (No, honestly!)
In past voluminous and ill-remembered reading, I've come across the assertion that belief in Changelings (fairy pseudo-infants swapped for abducted human infants) was particularly common in rural Ireland because of the population's high consumption of Poteen, resulting in a particularly high incidence of FAS. There does seem to be some correlation between FAS facial signs/symptoms and traditional concepts of fairy appearance. It might be worth adding something about this if sources can be tracked down. One also wonders if there are parallel causes of similar traditional beliefs elsewhere. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Fairies, Really
Although t I have seen a real FAS adult who looks like a fairy with long, glowing silvery blonde hair we read about as children. If that's what you meant? Oh by they way, rigorous exercise stimulates the brain as well. Ronewirl (talk) 18:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Prevalence Rates: Causes of Mental Retardation
The referenced articles estimate the prevalence of FAS at 1 per 1000 to 5000 live births (the article says '0.2 to 1 per 1000'; rearranged for clarity). Down Syndrome, which results in an arguably greater deficit, is estimated to occur in 1 per 800 to 1000 live births. This is a generally accepted rate, and is cited in the Down Syndrome article here on Wikipedia. If the author's intent is to highlight the difference in distribution of prevalence by age of the mother (Down Syndrome occurs more often in children born to older mothers), then this should be clarified. On average, Down Syndrome is actually the most common cause of mental retardation.--Bthomas001 (talk) 01:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Images
This article needs an image of a real child with FAS. Also needs a section on epidemiology around the world. -- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

An image of Summer Glau would do. I think it could also inspire afflicted children knowing that being mentally deficient does not limit your potential. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.66.99.129 (talk) 19:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any substantiated evidence that Glau has FAS? Also, the inspiration would likely be limited, as even if she has it, it must be a mild case. Rjferreiro (talk) 20:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Demographic information
I've spent some time working on an Indian reservation, and, anecdotally, there is a much higher rate of FAS among Native peoples than among the rest of us. Does anyone have info to back this up (or discredit it)? Rjferreiro (talk) 20:49, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Demographic information
According to the most cited academic article (in Scopus scientific database) the prevalence of FAS is "nearly one in every 100 live births". I'm changing the prevalence to reflect this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.192.118 (talk) 15:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Education Section
This section is basically irrelevant in that it gives advice for a teacher who has a student with FAS, which should be be present in this article on FAS. This isn't a manual for dealing with FAS; it's an encyclopedia entry. Should we remove it? 69.117.15.69 (talk) 00:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Editorial Voice
Given the large number of factors involved in potential FAS causes (volume, timing, various genetic factors, many of which are contained in this page), it seems unjustifiable for the leading sentence to read "when the mother drinks excessive alcohol during pregnancy." (This is also the summary given on the Disambiguation page for "FAS") The word "excessive" is difficult to quantify when no meaningful threshold can be established, factually unsupported, and fairly judgmental in tone for an encyclopedia article. I would merely replace the sentence with a more conservative and factually accurate on, but figured that it would be more useful to suggest that the full article be reviewed for verifiability and to remove similar language. 173.9.45.81 (talk) 22:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that I have resolved your issue. Could you check and let me know? Thanks.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  18:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, your revision only compounds the problem. Now it appears to indicate that any alcohol consumption on the part of the pregnant mother may result in FAS. This impression is further compounded by the following sentences in the introduction. This is a contentious issue, as concern for fetal health has traditionally been used as justification for interfering in the personal health decisions of the prospective mother - and even in the lives of non-pregnant women of child bearing age. Example: "Attendee Kimberly Blessing ’97 asked panelists about the advocacy movement for prepregnancy. “As a military spouse and subject to the military healthcare system, I have been bombarded with all kinds of information about how to prepare my body to have children, even though I don’t want to,” she said." here is a fuller discussion of the problem, from Spiked online.
 * Here is my proposed revision:
 * Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a pattern of mental and physical defects that can develop in a fetus if high levels of alcohol pass the placental barrier and enter fetal circulation during pregnancy. Current research connects FAS with high rates of alcohol consumption, combined with other lifestyle choices made by the prospective mother(see below). Despite a lack of data connecting FAS with lower rates of alcohol consumption(see below), a number of governmental health agencies recommend complete abstention during pregnancy. The current recommendation of both the Surgeon General of the United States and the British Department of Health is to drink no alcohol at all during pregnancy.Ermadog (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

ARND does NOT direct to here
While "Alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder" does redirect to this article, "ARND" does not direct to this article, it goes somewhere else (a comic book character?). There should be a disambiguation page for this...  I don't know how to make one, sorry. Could someone do this? --159.178.228.148 (talk) 16:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Fetal alcohol syndrome
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Fetal alcohol syndrome's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "May-2001": From Binge drinking:  From Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 15:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Paragraph under contents box
I am not expert enough in Wikipedia's style & various policies to change/delete it myself, but the whole paragraph under the contents box is certainly not fit for an encyclopedia, either in content or style, not to mention the total absence of references... sounds more like a half rant, and is close to vandalism, anybody out there expert in the subject care to delete the paragraph and maybe extract relevant information, if any, for other sections of the article? if nothing happens in a week or so, I'll delete it without further warning. darwinbot 23:12, 28 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darwinbot (talk • contribs)

Cause
the information provided in the Cause section of this article is incorrect. There is NO safe amount of alcohol during pregnancy. The CDC guidelines should be quoted under this section which states "Women who are pregnant, planning a pregnancy, or at risk of pregnancy should be advised not to drink, as no safe threshold of alcohol use during pregnancy has been established. Non pregnant childbearing-aged women should be advised to drink no more than seven drinks per week and no more than three drinks on any one occasion." http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/documents/fas_guidelines_accessible.pdf

There is great danger in stating in this article that women can drink a certain number of alcoholic drinks during pregnancy. As a mother raising two children with FAS I can say it is a difficult road for these children. We need to quit lying to women by telling them this is safe. Even the CDC acknowledges that there is NO SAFE AMOUNT! If women knew this and were told the truth there would be a whole lot less children suffering with FAS which is 100% preventable. I agree that it seems that FASD is 100% preventable but because organic brain injury can be caused very early in the pregnancy (the facial features are damaged if alcohol is consumed during the period of pregnancy called gastrulation which occurs around the 19 and 20th day of pregnancy), and because alcoholism is a disease, in essence it really isnt 100% preventable117.120.18.133 (talk) 05:03, 25 March 2014 (UTC).

NO AMOUNT IS SAFE! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.12.104.109 (talk) 22:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

All animals produce alcohol in the gut because that is where yeast lives so it is simply nonsense to make that kind of statement. I am wondering whether there is actually any scientific basis for FAS at all. The prevalence rates are arguably lower than Downs syndrome, all women have yeast in their system so are fermenting alcohol in their bodies. To say that alcohol produces a genetic alteration at the molecular DNA level seems to me to be a wildly implausible scenario. The physiological aspects of FAS may be due to some genetic condition which also predisposes a person to be susceptible to alcoholism. The problem is that there is now a change in the way doctors are looking at alcoholism, as a physical illness. There is a huge amount of opposition to this in mainstream thinking which ties alcohol in to the exercise of willpower so there has been very little study of the biological nature of alcohol addiction. Making sweeping statements that alcohol causes mental problems which are akin to ADHD and autism are ridiculous and there is now growing evidence that Autism is a treatable anxiety disorder http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/01/how-a-new-version-of-an-old-drug-may-someday-help-treat-autism-and-addiction-too/

This article reads like a "politically correct" diatribe aimed at mothers who drink and not a scientific article. I was particularly unimpressed by the reference above to Alfred E. Newman having the characteristics of FAS. Perhaps his comic book character parents drank heavily. Howls of laughter should not be what is elicited by comments in a "scientific" page on Wiki.88.255.217.103 (talk) 03:24, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia medical content must be supported by reliable sources. We try to reflect the scholarly and medical consensus as described in peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, graduate-level textbooks, etc. The relevant Wikipedia guideline is Identifying reliable sources (medicine). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Protective factors and strengths
In this section eight factors are described that are "universal protective factors". One of them is rather shocking: "Having basic needs met for at least 13% of life". So a child not having its basic needs met for 87% of life - that is, almost all the time - still lives in an environment providing protective factors???? Unfortunately I have no access to the source, but could someone who does, check it? Lova Falk    talk   08:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Spelling variations
I think we need to standardise this article and seeing how the title of the article conforms better with American English (as the British spell it foetal alcohol syndrome) and there is already a number of words spelt the American way (e.g. organization, meter and generalization are the three examples I saw) in this article we might as well put our feet down and make it official on this talk page. I would just do it myself but I felt I should get consensus. Fuse809 (talk) 07:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add this sentence in the third bullet point of the "functional" subheading to add more statistics.
The average IQ is 68, which is below average. Gmercado9 (talk) 20:02, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Animal models of FAS, FASD and other alcohol-related disorders
I was looking about to see if there was an existing article on animal models of alcohol consumption where research on the topic could be related, but did not find one. I don't want to "contaminate" this medical article with animal model research information. Thoughts on where such might be found / put? Or would you suggest creating an article to cover this? --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:16, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Interwiki links
Why does this redirect page interlink to various wikipedia articles in other languages. This is something that should surely only happen with articles and disambiguation pages. Does this have anything to do with the authority control tag on the redirect. Especially given that the article this page redirects to Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder appears on | this list of articles to be translated into foreign languages. The article is linked at wikidata here and this redirects is linked here. I'll write on the latter's discussion page but unless I get objections on this page or that discussion page I will be making changes to the wiki database in the next day or two. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 01:14, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Having looked further, it seems like the wikidata link here to this redirect is the correct one. The one that currently links to Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder should be left to the Portuguese, which has 2 articles on the subject. Spanish is the only other language with 2 articles because I just wrote the second one, and I can fix the Spanish to only have one article. So IMO the English article should link to the foreign language articles on this page as should the articles in Chinese, Persian and Oriya. I will fix all this on wikidata tomorrow, unless somebody objects here. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 01:44, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The issue has now ben resolved at wikidata, see Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. This means there wont b any more duplicating articls from | this list. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 01:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)