NEWS and ARTICLES
SBS (Australia) - Foetal alcohol syndrome
victim calls on pregnant women not to drink
When it comes to the dangers of drinking alcohol
while pregnant, the message may not be getting through. Australian researchers
say only two out of three women know that alcohol can affect their unborn
child.
Parent Herald - Alcohol During Pregnancy
Damages Learning and Memory in Children, Study Finds
A team of researchers from Xinxiang Medical
University in China found that maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy
damaged learning and memory in children.
Voice of America (South Africa) - Mentally
Disabled Women Endure Intense Abuse in South Africa
They’re mentally ill or disabled, suffering from
conditions such as cerebral palsy and fetal alcohol syndrome. The women are at
Ikhaya Loxolo, “Home of Peace,” a collection of mud huts in the district of
Hobeni in a particularly isolated part of South Africa’s Eastern Cape
province.
EurekAlert - FASD impacts brain development
throughout childhood and adolescence not just at birth
Medical researchers at the University of Alberta
recently published findings showing that brain development is delayed throughout
childhood and adolescence for people born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
(FASD).
Alaska Dispatch (Canada) - Senior Nunavut
judge urges territory to help inmates with FASD
An offender suffering from Fetal Alcohol
Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will have a hard time getting treatment in Canada’s
eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut because there are no programs for the
disorder in the territory’s correctional system.
The Guardian (UK) - A day in the life of ...
a health charity executive director
Our charity, the National Organisation for
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, supports people who have foetal alcohol-related
disabilities as well as their families, and I'm a pretty hands-on type of person
so no two days are the same.
Ninemsn (Australia) - GPs fail to warn
drinking mums, prof says
GPs have been too concerned about offending
people to warn women of the dangers of drinking while pregnant, leaving their
unborn children at risk of birth defects, a professor of pediatrics says.
Scotland on Sunday (Scotland) - Alcohol
syndrome babies slip through safety net
LARGE numbers of children in Scotland affected
by their mothers drinking alcohol during pregnancy have not been diagnosed,
experts suspect.
National Magazine (Canada) - Court system an
abusive one for victims of FASD
The criminal justice system can be an abusive
one for children and adults with the kind of disability that robs them the
ability to foresee the consequences of their actions, says a lawyer who is
intimately acquainted with the problem.
Labcanada (Canada) - $1.7M project examines
genetic roots of FASD
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has
awarded $1.37 million in funding to a team at the University of Manitoba that is
led by James Davie, Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Chromatin Dynamics.
UPCOMING EVENTS
First International Conference on Prevention
of FASD
This is the first international conference to
address the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of FASD. Plenary sessions
will promote discussion and reflection on promising and innovative approaches
for preventing FASD, such as policies and programs to address alcohol use and
the social determinants of health.
MOFAS - 2013 FASD matters conference:
exploring the spectrum November 14-15, 2013
The Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome (MOFAS) is the statewide organization serving as the leading voice and
resource on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in Minnesota – standing up
for the rights of the FASD community, providing education and training so FASD
is better understood and working to ensure that all women know that there is no
safe level of alcohol use during pregnancy.
Living With FASD 2013 Summit, September 9
2013
The purpose of this telesummit is to provide
families with information about practical strategies to implement at home, based
on the newest FASD research. Speakers have been specially selected because they
have experience on a professional level and also have first-hand experience
raising children with FASD.
Interprofessional Continuing Education -
6th National Biennial Conference on Adolescence and
adults with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders - Call for Abstracts
he conference does not cover honoraria,
accommodation, travel or other associated expenses. However, the primary
presenter of 3-hour/90-minute abstracts willreceive complimentary registration
to the conference (~$600 value).
VIDEOS, MATERIALS
Youtube - FASD COMMUNITIES, informational
video by Elizabeth H.
Many young adults grow up with FASD and have
problems adjusting to life after school. FASD Communities is a 501c(3)
organization that raises funds to establish group homes for this growing
population of young adults.
sydney.edu.au - A success story - a community
led collaboration with remote indigenous Australia
‘Our children are our greatest asset’ says
Professor Elizabeth Elliott, paediatrician at the Sydney Children’s Hospitals
Network, Westmead, and Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the
University of Sydney. Yet many children suffer brain damage even before they are
born, through exposure to alcohol in the womb.
RESEARCH
PubMed - Involving consumers and the
community in the development of a diagnostic instrument for fetal alcohol
spectrum disorders in Australia
The successful involvement of consumers and the
community in the FASD Project can be attributed to active consumer and community
participation, which included continued involvement throughout the project,
funding of participation activities, and an understanding of the various
contributions by the Collaboration members.
Educational Psychology in Practice - Foetal
Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: as prevalent as autism?
An examination of the literature on Foetal
Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and its relevance to the work of Educational
Psychologists (EPs) suggested that the impact of FASD on EPs’ casework is an
area which has been underexplored, and which merits further attention.
Brain Sciences - Drug-Induced Apoptosis:
Mechanism by which Alcohol and Many Other Drugs Can Disrupt Brain
Development
Maternal ingestion of alcohol during pregnancy
can cause a disability syndrome termed Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD),
which may include craniofacial malformations, structural pathology in the brain,
and a variety of long-term neuropsychiatric disturbances.
Alcoholism - Early Fetal Binge Alcohol
Exposure Predicts High Behavioral Symptom Scores in 5.5-Year-Old
Children
Fetal binge alcohol exposure has been associated
with neurobehavioral and cognitive symptoms. This study explored whether binge
drinking mainly before recognition of pregnancy predicted high symptom scores on
the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in 5.5-year-old
children.
Alcohol - Neonatal ethanol exposure results
in dose-dependent impairments in the acquisition and timing of the conditioned
eyeblink response and altered cerebellar interpositus nucleus and hippocampal
CA1 unit activity in adult rats
Exposure to ethanol in neonatal rats results in
reduced neuronal numbers in the cerebellar cortex and deep nuclei of juvenile
and adult animals. This reduction in cell numbers is correlated with impaired
delay eyeblink conditioning (EBC), a simple motor learning task in which a
neutral conditioned stimulus (CS; tone) is repeatedly paired with a
co-terminating unconditioned stimulus (US; periorbital shock).
