Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of seville. Talked podcast. I'm really excited. Today's conversation is when a friend of mine and she is passionate about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and she wants to talk to us about that. So i have been doing a couple episodes on persons with special needs and my guest is someone who is working in the area of human services. And i'm just excited to have her here to have this conversation with us. So welcome andrea. Erasmus i'm really happy to have you here. Thank you for inviting me. I'm excited to be here. I would like to introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us about why you're passionate about today's conversation. Iran if he st. Okay so my name is andrea. Russ miss. I've been working with children and families and vulnerable children and families in different capacities and alberta for the last seven years. I'm also south african. Yes there to represent represent our african sisters exactly at a very passionate about fasd for the simple reason that it is one hundred percent preventable in many things in terms of prenatal health. As many things of women does not have control over in terms of bringing a child into this world but fasd is completely preventable. And that is why. I'm here to spread the word. I want to talk about it. There's a lot of misinformation a matters a lot of shame and what let's talk about. So let's talk about it so give us a little bit more background information the basics. I wanna start out by letting our listeners know that we are in no way physicians. We're in no way medical practitioners. We are not speaking from any professional perspective but simply out of a police of passion and personal experience for the issue of fasd. So please make sure that you understand that we are not here to diagnose anyone to suggest any kind of medical recommendation. Our discussion today is one hundred percent from our personal background. So less thought out and by talking about your understanding of fasd. I did do some research and a lot of the information that i got was from. Cdc center of disease control and prevention. But i like it to check a quick chat with us. About what fiesty. Why you said is preventable. Christie just said it is preventable and other general information that you think mums and everyone else should be aware of. So i mean you talk about. Cdc that's a great resource. And i'm just gonna go to health canada's website where we're both located right now absolutely. Fasd as health. Canada defines. It is a brain injury that can occur when an unborn baby. It's exposed to. Alcohol is a lifelong disorder with infects that include physical mental behavioral and learning disabilities and because it's fetal alcohol spectrum disorder these disabilities as the spectrum. It can range from mild to severe. Obviously there's no known safe amount of alcohol returning. You can't test you know all these lab tests on human baby pregnant people obsolete exactly so there's no safe amount of known alcohol for a mother that we do know. Fasd is specifically caused by alcohol. Exposure in utero and is the leading cause of preventable developmental disabilities in canada. Taking it back to south africa global research says south. Africa has the highest rates of fasd in the On the planet. What yes okay. This is news to me. Yes we can talk about that in the mess and the acrobat. Because you're african. We are advocating end. Yeah i liked to start over home in any compensation okay. Because i think it's important to address. Our people. charity begins at from home. Is what my name you people say. That's why is south africa. All my goodness you know like unbelie- pulled up some numbers so like the global prevalence they estimate and an fasd's also part of the diagnosis fasd is the disclosure of the mother. Admitting to drinking while pregnant right like how. Can you be diagnosed. If nobody says so the global prevalence they estimate and of course this will never be an exact science because there's no one hundred percent is about eight per one thousand births of every eight babies per one thousand but south africa depending way. Aw in south africa's so the western cape province has the highest rates but it ranges anywhere from twenty nine to two hundred ninety per one thousand. Live births is a lot. Yes with and it's intergenerational right and we can talk about the cultural norms. We can talk about the social attitudes of harvey socioeconomic things out old ties in but the point is south africa as what they believe is the highest rates in the world and like eclipses ireland. Which doll is the second highest and then some of it is historical. You know. Due to south africa's history of colonization weiss rule They wear policies in place. Where the fom is paid farm labourers in alcohol per week and that had entered that that did get outlawed but the point is it also creates a system of addiction system of dependence on the system of normalcy. In using alcohol. Right south africa has a high prevalence of illegal liquor stores. Liquor stores that aren't licensed on regulated. You combine whatever they're and they're probably selling to whoever there because it's not a regulated thing these illegal facilities with there serving in selling liquor so this you know they're not going to be checking. Id and is not the regulations around that and there's also like a big social component because alcohol has been such a big part of the country's history on the country's current activities as it's just it's normalized in many senses in many places. Yeah it is i. I remember watching a video on. I think i might have sent to you as well. When i saw a bunch of what appeared to be high school kids consuming some kind of alcoholic hand sanitizer or yet some sort and i just remember thinking wow like. I didn't realize that this is such a big in serious issue in south africa. Yes that is. A huge issue and another issue is also from like a government policy perspective. In countries like canada. You know united states. Uk new zealand. Australia fasd in prenatal drink. Alcohol exposure seen as a public health issue. That's a lot of matt. You know you go to the public. A toilet a bathroom in a restaurant. You see the posters on the stalls is seen as a public health issue here when in south africa the isn't that same level of education and awareness and in many countries particularly in sub saharan africa. We know this much higher rates of drinking. So i'm gonna get into that conversation a little bit later. But i'll ask you what you think. What posey measures. Or what policymakers can use to address this problem. But before we get into less talk about dimiss in misconceptions around fiesty his. Are you talked about stigma in a little bit in the beginning. So let's get into that. I i just want to start off. I'm sure this goes without saying most people know this that when a woman gets pregnant The baby develops from the inside out right. The embryo develops the brain and the spinal tube the spinal column and then everything else you know fingers toes fingernails. That can stuff comes later from this rains. Yes but the brain develops i. And the brits the neural tube that's cold so that develops boast so many women don't find out figure out the pregnant until they're four to six weeks along right so that kind of in general and this is again on a a socioeconomic thing. This is just a general statement. So if you're casually drinking drinking often you probably end in general you're not gonna know you're pregnant to your four to six weeks along and we know that the baby's brain develop first house all kinds of tied at some of the common myths. And i mean. I hear those these myths here..