Sorry for the long absence, but a lot has been going on in the last few months and I had to take a step back. Over this time period I've also been thinking about the format of the Blog and assessing it a bit. I think it's gonna stay the same for now, but eventually I would like to throw in more tips and tools for mamas on their little ones, Occupational Therapy related. If you have any suggestions about format or tips or tools, please let me know, don't be shy. You can msg me privately via Facebook on the Ergo Mama V page or the Ergo MamaV profile, or you can post a comment publicly on here. Any suggestions or constructive feedback is welcome!
For today, here is a little bit on FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder), as this is one of my focus at work right now. This disorder is first of all, a 100% preventable! This is all based off a mother's alcohol consumption during pregnancy. If you remember anything from today's post, please be this: No quantity of alcohol is "safe" during pregnancy! Alcohol abstinence is the only way to go if you are expecting to get pregnant or if you're not using a reliable form of contraception (and having sex!!! hehe). I am not here to pose a judgment today and neither should you! There are many reasons why women drink during pregnancy (including not knowing you're prego!). However, getting those women help, without stigmatizing, is the best way you can help them. Overall, awareness needs to be done to help bring support and try to reduce the numbers.
The government of Alberta says: " Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a preventable, lifelong disability resulting from prenatal exposure to alcohol that has no cure. Addressing FASD is a complex, multidimensional social and public health issue."
Did you know that 1% of the Canadian population as FASD (and those are conservative numbers!!!)?! This means that FASD is more prevalent than Autism!!! Yet we hear about and diagnose autism (Autism Spectrum Disorder) way more... and there's not even a known cause for ASD so that it could be prevented!!
So what is FASD? The symptoms are many and diverse but here is an overview. First of all, if the mother drank in the weeks 4-6 of gestation, the baby will have the face characteristics. Then the other characteristics are mostly brain-related and recently they are also linking physical abnormalities as well. As FASDchildwelfare.ca states it : "Prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause a wide variety physical and functional symptoms with differing levels of severity. There is no one physical, behavioural or psychological profile for a person who has an FASD. Each individual will be affected by prenatal alcohol exposure in a different way and interventions that work for one child may not be successful with another." However, some common ones can be having a hard time with concepts (time, space, money and other general concepts), attention, speech and communication skills, movement, sensory issues and many more, creating different learning disabilities.
If you want to learn more, please go to http://fasdchildwelfare.ca/learning/caregivers and http://fasd.alberta.ca/get-to-know-fasd.aspx
Thanks for Reading!
V
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