There are some weird twists and turns to the following story. (This is the fourth blog in the most personal series I’ve ever written—the agony of learning our daughter’s birth sister had suffered significant prenatal alcohol exposure , then our subsequent confusion, then our search for a diagnosis. ) I need to begin by stating that 1) this was several years ago, research on fetal alcohol exposure was fairly new and is changing all the time and 2) I was talking with several specialists and reading a lot of information and it is possible I misunderstood some things or mixed up who said them and when. This is my story as I experienced it. It may not be common today; it may not have been terribly common then. But I have heard from others that it happened to them.
Back to my story: the three risk factors for significant impairment from prenatal alcohol:
Number One: The birthmother had admitted alcohol exposure. The report indicated an amount drunk once a week, indicating binge drinking. I have considered the possibility that the translation ought to read “per week”, not “once a week”, indicating two or three drinks a night rather than a binge. Either way, it’s significant exposure.
No amount of alcohol is considered safe during pregnancy, but binges can be extra damaging. However, if the birthmother drank only once a week there’s a possibility she was not drinking on critical days in the child’s development. So I’m not sure which way I’d prefer it to have happened. From the baby’s perspective, it’s Russian roulette either way.
So, we’ve got a high score on factor one, exposure.
Number Two: the baby was small. If she was in fact delivered at 38 weeks as her papers say, then she does qualify, barely, for the diagnosis of Intrauterine Growth Retardation (IUGR). However, the birthmother is very small and the birth sister is very small, and I’m not sure where they got the 38 week figure given that the birthmother says she didn’t know she was pregnant until the seventh month. If she was even a week or two earlier, then her weight would be in an appropriate range for a baby born slightly premature.
So, we are inconclusive about factor two, growth retardation.
Factor Three: here is where the story gets interesting. Stay tuned.