Definition and Terms of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was an interesting topic for me because I ran into an account of this while I was working at a restaurant in Fayetteville, and because I am pregnant. I wondered what abnormalities the baby would experience and if it was against the law in North Carolina to drink while pregnant or to knowingly serve a pregnant woman alcohol. Researching this topic I found a lot of basic definitions for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). The one I liked the best I found at the website for The National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS) http://www.nofas.org/main/what_is_FAS.htm. NOFAS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating birth defects caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy and improving the quality of life for the individuals and families of the individuals affected. NOFAS is the only organization in the US to focus solely on FAS. According to this site "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a lifelong yet completely preventable set of physical, mental and neurobehavioral birth defects associated with alcohol consumption during pregnancy." Also included with this definition were the definitions of terms that I would run into during my research, such as Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder which describes only mental or functional impairments and Alcohol-Related Birth Defects which describes malformations to the skeletal and major organ systems. This web site also told me the major characteristics of FAS which included facial abnormalities, growth deficiency, central nervous system dysfunction, poor motor skills, behavioral and learning problems, difficulties with memory, attention and judgment. In addition to the wonderful explanations of this syndrome it also provided links to free on-line publications and links to topics related to FAS.
Statistics related to FAS.
Every website I visited had some sort of statistical related information.