How+FAS+was+Discovered!

How was alcohol discover to damage Fetus? It was not until the late 1960's that fetal alcohol syndrome was investiagte for the first time. Before then their was no scientific data to prove the support of the disease. In the 1950's, alcohol was on the rise a few worried about the effects of the unborn. In the United States Dr Ashley Montague argued that were was nothing to worry about and a lot of women remain drinking in the United States due to this book! In France a diffrent study was being done, four years later the scientists had diffrent report. They had been study 127 children born to alcholic mothers and found a series of effects that were due to alcohol in the fetus stage. The scientists identified stunted growth patterns,deformities of the face, and defects of the nervous system. That the children suffered, the french study recieved only modest attention,because it was published in a small French journal and was never translated into English. In 1973 another article dealing with the effects of alcohol on unborn children appeared in the prestigous British journal Lancet. The article documented the work of a group of scientists headed by Dr. David Smith and Dr. Kenneth Jones from the University of Washington. They studied infants born to alcoholic mothers at Harborview Hospital in Seattle. Besides the range of physical deformities of the infants, Smith and Jones describe the babies failure to gain weight, their apparent disinterest in nursing, their poor suckling ability, and how infrequently they cried for attention. the doctors sought the assistance of a child psychologist, who found that the infants had varying degrees of brain damage as well. Smith and Jones gave this collection its name : fetal alcohol syndrome. The article by Smith anfd Jones recieved a great deal of international attention. Research groups were formed in number of countries to study alchol and its effcts on their populations.

Ciara Ferguson