Just when you thought that pre-natal exposure to alcohol couldn't cause any more problems, comes this: A new study that suggests that it could predispose children to become alcoholics.

The new research comes courtesy of the State University of New York system, specifically its SUNY Upstate Developmental Exposure Alcohol Research Center in Syracuse. Steven Youngentob, a professor of neuroscience and physiology, and his team found that rats exposed to alcohol in the womb learn to like its taste and smell, and will drink more of it later on than rats who... more

Sign up for a Google alert on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and you get a lot of junk e-mail. FAS seems to be a favorite term for spam bloggers, of which there are many. So many, in fact, that many times I delete the alert on FAS without even reading it.

But when I do, I run the risk of missing key information for parents of children adopted from Russia, because of their concern about FAS in that country. If I had hit the delete key too fast this week I would have missed the research behind the... more

An international team of doctors has developed a way to use three-dimensional laser images to diagnose fetal alcohol syndrome.

The doctors used the lasers to take just six images of a child suspected of having FAS--two from the front and two from either side. That gave them digital images that could then be measured objectively by a computer program the researchers established to look for differences between a control group that did not have FAS and the child being measured.

Any parent who has adopted from Russia or who is thinking of adopting from Russia... more

Once upon a time in Russia, as in many countries, it was unseemly for women to drink and certainly to drink to excess. That began to change in the 1960s and, while it may not be possible to put the genie back in the bottle, some health professionals are working to educate Russian women and their doctors about the problems caused by drinking during pregnancy.

One of them is Tatiana Balachova, and I had a chance to interview her last week. Born and educated in Russia, Balachova is now an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, and... more

Why does pre-natal exposure to alcohol seem to weigh more heavily on some of the children we have adopted from Russia than others? A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison may hold the key.

According to findings published Friday in Biological Psychiatry, the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, children who carry a certain gene variant may be more likely than others to suffer the ill effects... more

As I noted the other day, the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has declared September 9 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders awareness day. So I suppose that it is entirely fitting that, this past week, Minnesota Public Radio ran a six-part series on FASD, entitled "Fetal alcohol syndrome: The invisible disorder".

The Minnesota Public... more

As I noted the other day, the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has declared September 9 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders awareness day. So I suppose that it is entirely fitting that, this past week, Minnesota Public Radio ran a six-part series on FASD, entitled "Fetal alcohol syndrome: The invisible disorder".

The Minnesota Public... more

Worries about pre-natal exposure to alcohol hover over just about every adoption from Russia. We worry about how much the birth mother drank, and at what point during her pregnancy. We worry about the trauma children suffer as a result of being exposed to an alcoholic parent. We worry about how lasting, and how severe, the effects of that alcohol consumption will be on our children. For many parents, the worry and uncertainty is too overwhelming. They simply walk away from considering Russia as an adoption destination.

On Sunday, September 9, the National... more

Think Russia is the only country with a drinking problem that affects its kids? Think again.

A new study estimates that almost one American in three--30.3% to be exact--has a problem with alcohol at some time in their lives. Of that group, 17.8% say they abuse alcohol and 12.5% say they have problems because of alcohol dependence. And most of these problems go untreated.

The study, which is published in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, was an enormous undertaking. Researchers including Columbia University... more

Last week's post on the startling death rate among Russian men from drinking alcohol not meant to be a beverage struck a chord with many readers. And it made me realize that I have not lived up to an early promise I made to this blog, which was to explore the impact of Russia's alcohol troubles on adoption. Yes, there are problems: Even President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that in his speeches. But concerns about the impact of a birth mother's drinking on her... more