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Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Brief History of FASD:

There are claims that FASD was evident as far back as the Old Testament. Some have opined that Biblical references include Exodus, 20:5, which states that God will be, "...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.…" Others dismiss this as a reference to FASD.

Still, it seems that even thousands of years ago people were aware of the affects of alcohol on unborn children. In Judges, 13:3-5, Samson's mother was told, "...you shall conceive and bear a son...take no wine or strong drink and to eat nothing unclean...for this boy is to be consecrated to God from the womb." Also, from around 814 to 146 B.C., Carthage, a city-state in Northeast Africa, forbade the use of alcohol for newlyweds, as did Sparta, a city-state in Greece. (1)

Interestingly, Plato (427-347 B.C.) also recommended that newly married couples forgo alcohol, "...that the child that is begotten may be sprung from the loins of sober parents."(2)

Robert Burton, in his text, Anatomy of Melancholia (1621), relates that ancient Greek authorities felt that " Foolish, drunken or hair-brained women, for the most part bring forth children like unto themselves, morose and languid,"(3). Gellius a Roman diarist, (130-180 AD), also stated, "...if a drunken man get a child, it will never likely have a good brain."(4)

In 1627, Sir Francis Bacon wrote in Sylva Sylbarum, "...if the mother …drink wine or strong drink immoderately; or fast too much;...it endangereth the child to become lunatic, or of imperfect memory..." (5)

Author A. Lynn Martin also found three references by 17th Century writers blaming the drinking of fathers for the behaviors of their offspring:

• In 1725, "London physicians petitioned the British House of Commons to solve the unbridled consumption of distilled spirits using as one of their arguments that distilled alcohol affected the parents who were '...too often the cause of weak feeble and distempered children, who must be, instead, of an advantage and strength, a charge to their country.'" (6)
• In 1730, Stephen Hales, an Anglican priest and an early researcher on the effects of alcohol wrote, "Nay, the unhappy influence of these liquors reaches much farther than to the destruction of those who indulge in the use of them, … to the children that are yet unborn. Of this we have we have too frequent instances, where the unhappy mothers habituate themselves to these distilled liquors, whose children, when first born, are often either of a diminutive, pigmy size, or look withered and old, as if they had numbered many years, when they have not, as yet, alas! attained to the evening of the first day. How many more instances are there of children, who tho' born with good constitutions have unhappily sucked in the deadly spirituous poison with their nurses' milk."…"Whence it is evident that in proportion as the contagion spreads father and farther among mankind, so must the breed of human species be proportionately more and more depraved, and will accordingly degenerate more and more from the manly and robust constitution of preceding generations." (7)
• In 1785, Dr. Benjamin Rush (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and described as the first psychiatrist in America) wrote about alcoholics and the effect their drinking had on their children. He wrote in part "...their children, filthy, and half clad, without manners, principles and morals!" (8)

Finally, various medical reports in the late 1960's had planted a seed in the minds of two doctor's in Seattle, Washington. In 1972, that seed suddenly sprouted when Doctor's Jones and Smith observed nine babies in neo-natal intensive care, all of which

• - had been born early,
• - had a low birth weight,
• - had evidence of CNS damage, and
• - had similar facial features.

Interestingly, all nine also had mom's that were known alcoholics.

Now known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, FASD is recognized to cross all boundaries of wealth, race, and nation.

How can we, as people of God, effectively approach and assist in a difficulty of this magnitude? Only with His help and guidance.

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1. Rebecca Warner and Henry L. Rosett, "The Effects of Drinking on Offspring," Journal of Studies on Alcohol, (1975.) Cited from Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholia (1621) and J.P. Frank in System einer vollstandingen medicinischen Polizei (1784) and Haggard and Jellinek in Alcohol Explored (1944), in Psoba, "FAS in Antiquity", On the Trail of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, online article, 22 Mar. 2005, < http://journals.aol.com/psoba/OntheTrailofFetalAlcoholSyndrome >

2. Plato's Laws. in Rebecca Warner and Henry L. Rosett, "The Effects of Drinking on Offspring," Journal of Studies on Alcohol, (1975.) 1397, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholia (1621) and Ernest Abel in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effects (1984), in Psoba, "FAS in Antiquity", On the Trail of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, online article, 22 Mar. 2005, < http://journals.aol.com/psoba/OntheTrailofFetalAlcoholSyndrome >

3. Aristotle's Problemata, from a journal study by A. Lynn Martin. (2003) "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Europe, 1300-1700: A Review of Data on Alcohol Consumption and a Hypothesis". Food and Foodways, in Ibid.

4. Aulus Gellius (Roman). in Rebecca Warner and Henry L. Rosett, "The Effects of Drinking on Offspring," Journal of Studies on Alcohol, (1975), in Ibid.

5. From Ernest Abel's Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effects (1884) p.665, in Psoba, "FAS in the 1700's", Ibid

6. "British Physicians on the Dangers of Alcohol: Petition to the House of Commons." in Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirit Upon the Human Body From Drugs in America: A Documentary History edited by David. F. Musto. (2002) New York: New York University Press, in Ibid.

7. David. F. Musto, Ed, Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirit Upon the Human Body From Drugs in America: A Documentary History (New York: New York University Press, 2002) in Psoba, "FAS in the 1700's", On the Trail of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, online article, 22 Mar. 2005, <http://journals.aol.com/psoba/OntheTrailofFetalAlcoholSyndrome >

8. Ibid.

FASD resources

Contact us at
Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare

PO Box 253, Hillsboro, ND 58045 - 0253

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