Question

How does a mother's consumption of alcohol during pregnancy affect a developing fetus? Use specific examples and terms from the lesson to support your answer.

Answer 1

While contracting an illness is often beyond the mother’s control, the choices a mother makes while carrying her child can have permanent impacts on the child’s health and development. Drinking alcohol, using legal or illegal drugs, or smoking cigarettes can all negatively impact a growing fetus.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the term used to describe the pattern of mental and physical defects caused by a mother's consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. Common characteristics of children with FAS include:

• Small head size and eyes
• Low body weight and short stature
• Thin upper lip
• Droopy eyelids
• Smooth ridge between the nose and upper lip (this ridge is called the philtrum)
• Vision or hearing problems
• Speech and language delays
• Poor memory
• Hyperactive behavior
• Difficulty paying attention
• Learning disabilities
• Intellectual disabilities or low IQ
• Poor reasoning and judgment skills

Answer 2

It could cause the baby to be born with problems.

It could cause the baby to be smaller than other babies, it could cause them to have differences in their face like narrow eyes small of flat upper lip.
Withdrawals are, trembling and shaking, diarrhea, extreme irritability (or fussiness), and feeding problems.