Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention: Creating Health Literacy Awareness About the

Effects of Alcohol to the Unborn Child

Alcohol consumption among pregnant women is a growing problem not only in the U.S. but also to the rest of the world. Billions are spent treating birth defects and other symptoms related to prenatal alcohol drinking. Statistics done shows that treatment of the disorder costs the U.S. 6 billion dollars annually (Burd & Hardwood, 2004); adjust that to the current inflation rate and it could be as high as 8 million dollars. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) Community Resource Center came up with $5.4 million dollars as the estimated expected lifetime costs for one child with FAS disorder in 2003. This includes direct cost (surgical corrections of FAS related birth defects, heart and auditory defects and moderate to severe mental retardation) and indirect cost (healthcare, special education, psychotherapy, counseling, crime and welfare). These extremely high costs clearly justify major prevention efforts not only from the government but also from the public. To achieve this goal, the public and the community must be educated about FAS, woman of child-bearing age; especially teenagers and school age children should and must be informed about the effects of alcohol on an unborn child before they even discover alcohol on their own (Donnelly, Mowery, & McCarver, 1998).

We begin by creating awareness of the problems through educational campaigns. “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Florida Resource Guide,” a brochure produced jointly by the Florida Department of Children and Families, the Florida Department of Health, and the Florida State University Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy has this to say about F...

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...D. G. (1998) Knowledge and Misconceptions Among Inner- City African-American Mothers Regarding alcohol and Drug Use. American Journal of Drug & Alcohol Abuse, 24(4), 675-683.

Glik, D., Prelip, M., Myerson, A., Eilers, K., Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Using Community-Based Narrowcasting Campaigns. Health Promotion Practice, 9 (1), 93-103.

Lupton, C., Burd, L. and Harwood, R. (2004), Cost of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C: Seminars in Medical Genetics, 127C: 42–50. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.c.30015

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Florida Resource Guide (n.d.) Retrieved January 26, 2011 from http://fasdcenter.samhsa.gov/document/ FASDGuide12_021.pdf

The Economic Cost of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome FAS Community Resource Center 2003. Retrieved January 26, 2011 from http://www.fascenter.samhsa.gov.publications/economic cost.