Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, North America, Europe discussed on The Mom Room

The Mom Room
|

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

And so your liver is just being slammed, the more you drink. And just unable to safely process the amount of alcohol that you're drinking. So for women who are pregnant or in postpartum, if they're breastfeeding, can we talk about that? So obviously we know you shouldn't drink if you're pregnant. But then I remember researching this in Europe and in some places like in North America, it's like abstinence, a 100%, but in some places of the world, it's not. So can we talk a little bit about alcohol while you're pregnant and then also while breastfeeding? Absolutely. It's a great question. And so the reason why we're cautious with alcohol in pregnancy, it's because alcohol is what we call a teratogen. So we know it causes adverse effects on the developing fetus or birth defects for a more generic term, primarily in the form of something called FASD. You know what that means. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. So FASD for short, and it's just a range of and the thing is is that it's a spectrum, right? Which is why it's so challenging. It's a range of physical and mental behavioral effects and learning disabilities. And it can be from mild to really severe and unfortunately, we just don't know what level is safe. So it's such a spectrum and it's so fascinating like, you know, I've had patients that have had really problematic alcohol use, and they didn't know they were pregnant until 20 weeks, 30 weeks pregnant, which happens all the time Renee all the time, right? And it's okay guys, if you're drinking in your didn't know you were pregnant. Don't worry about it. There's nothing you can do. So don't beat yourself up. And some of these children are very minimally affected. Well, as other people who had minimal, you know, to moderate alcohol can have a more significantly affected child. So that's why we don't know..

Coming up next