. . . while she was pregnant with you? My mother almost certainly did. I don't know how much, but judging by memory and her later lifelong patterns, I'd say she smoked at least 10-30 cigarettes a day (there were no "light" versions then, not that it would matter one bit) and probably drank a minimum of four and a maximum of perhaps 6-8 "standard" drinks per day (they measured them with shot glasses -- that much I know for a fact). The 6-8 drinks would have been on a "party day" or perhaps every weekend, but their normal was at least 4 per day.
This would have been the case with all four of us children. My eldest brother died of muscular dystrophy 11 years ago but that had nothing to do with fetal alcohol syndrome, but the rest of us?
Here are some facts. I won't bother linking some of them because they're easily findable.
1. Alcohol damages the developing cells of the fetus.
The brain and central nervous system are particularly sensitive to alcohol and can suffer permanent damage.
2. Any amount can have some effect, so there is no minimum amount of alcohol in pregnancy that is safe. The developing fetus can't break down the alcohol as quickly as an adult, so its exposure to alcohol is actually higher than the mother's.
3. Signs of central nervous system abnormalities include delayed development, behavioural problems, or learning disabilities and intellectual impairment. For example, children with FAS may develop the ability to speak or walk later than normal. Behavioural problems may include hyperactivity, nervousness, anxiety, and short attention spans.
4. Cigarette smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, including truly nasty things like cyanide, lead, and at least 60 cancer-causing compounds. When you smoke during pregnancy, that toxic brew gets into your bloodstream, your baby's only source of oxygen and nutrients.
5. On average, a pack-a-day habit during pregnancy will shave about a half-pound from a baby's birth weight. Smoking two packs a day throughout your pregnancy could make your baby a full pound or more lighter. While some women may welcome the prospect of delivering a smaller baby, stunting a baby's growth in the womb can have negative consequences that last a lifetime.
I wonder what lasting consequences my mother's smoking and drinking had on me. I get irritable easily and always have. I'm more susceptible to addictive behaviours than other people I know. I had trouble concentrating in school -- my grades were rarely more than average. I get anxious easily, sometimes destabilizingly so. Now, if this applies to you or someone you know, you may just say "but everyone's like that to a certain degree."
Perhaps. But what might I have been like if my mother (and father!) had not smoked and drunk while I was in the womb? My sister, who is closest to me in age, agrees that we must have suffered consequences.
And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg. What, may I legitimately ask, were the consequences of growing up with parents who smoked and drank every single day of our lives? I shudder to think.
I like very much to know that through a fluke of chance, I completely gave up drinking at least a year before my son was born and my ex-wife neither drank nor smoked, nor were we ever around anyone who did, so he got the best possible springboard to jump out into this life.
Thanks to Jim Donahue whose link made me think. And also glad that I no longer drink.
Both my parents smoked and drank (not to alcoholic levels, though.) My mother smoked through her pregnancy, then I got second-hand smoke non-stop until I was ten, at which point my mother quit. My parents were divorced, so I still got second-hand smoke at my Dad's place.
ReplyDeleteI try not to think about what my mother probably drank while pregnant with me. I don't seem to have FAS! :) She'd had so many miscarriages before me, it's possible she was careful about not drinking but who knows. She wasn't careful about not smoking!
You see, we'll never know. Since we weren't victims of obviously screamingly alcoholic parents (drunk all day, drugs etc. etc.) what happened to us is probably a lot more subtle -- perhaps unnoticeable in the pantheon of various human personalities.
ReplyDeleteBut things like a low boiling point, anxiety etc. . . . who knows? Alcohol affecting our brains at the most primitive developmental periods, when they're only millions of molecules in size as opposed to the quadrillions of adulthood could have huge overall effects, irreversible and long-term.
Combined with cigarettes it becomes almost attempted murder, if you think about it.
Then _I_ started smoking and drinking in my mid-teens, so who knows how THAT affected my brain? The teenage years are crucial to brain development. And if my parents (and everyone else around me) hadn't smoked and drunk, combined with an absence of alcohol and nicotine while I was in the womb, well, I'd probably be Pat Robertson.