Dear Colleagues:

Today I experienced Listserv CLASH. I am on this list and on FASLink, a
listserv devoted to caregivers, people with FAS and professionals dealing
with FAS.

I joined FASLink after I read an article by Bonnie Buxton in the May, 1998
issue of Elm Street (a Canadian magazine). Bonnie was writing about the
experience of being a parent of an adopted child whose capacities are
limited because her biological mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. As I
read Bonnie's article "the penny dropped" and I realized that I, too, had
known a young man all his life and had NOT put it all together. He, too, is
an adopted child whose birth mother drank alchohol and used other drugs
during pregnancy. I have learned a lot during my year plus on FASLink, so
I'll try to answer some of your questions.

At 07:09 PM 7/12/99 -0400, Ronald Labonte wrote:
>Having caught the debate, I visited the web-site.  Who is Bruce Ritchie?


Bruce Ritchie is a man who is the biological father of a child with FAS. He
is also the new moderator of FASLink and devotes his life advocating for
better lives for people with FAS and their care givers. I know him
personally also.

>What is TRIUMF?

A dream of creating a community where people who share problems can live
and work together to create a better life.

> I had the uncomfortable feeling of reading a "true-belief"
>zealot's page.

I recommend that those of you who visit the website also visit the archives
of the listserv, where you will see all kinds of topics addressed,
including the contribution of the father's use of drugs and alcohol to FAS,
links to lots of useful research, the testimonies of many who live with the
problem 24/7, the difficulties of birth moms in recovery (and not), what it
is like to live with a greatly misunderstood problem, etc.

  While not wanting to discount the problems of FAS, I wonder
>if we are not constructing yet another single disease for complex social
>pathologies.

I refer you to research by Anne Streissgurth. Start at her website
http://depts.washington.edu/fadu/

Of course, the issue is VERY COMPLEX. It is an area that could benefit from
critical reflection. But, that should be done in the context of
uderstanding and compassion.

For information about FAS, visit http://www.nofas.org/stats.htm

For information about some of the problems with mother blaming, visit
http://www.lindesmith.org/womrepro.html

  Is there someone on this list with a less-vested take on FAS
>who might corroborate or question the huge statistical list of social ills
>the TRIUMF web-site attributes to (it would seem) even a single drink by a
>pregnant woman?  I could be wrong/out of touch with this issue.  Or TRIUMF
>could be dangerous.

TRIUMF isn't dangerous, unless dreaming of a healing community is
dangerous...and, I guess some would say that it is.

If you take the time to visit the archives, you will see that people who
live with FAS question everything. There you will find a range of ideas,
from mine, which I hope are based in feminism and critical reflection, to
those of people who would lock up drug abusing pregnant women without a
moment's hesitation.

The problems articulated are real. Whether "even a single drink" is the
cause is problemmatic. To begin, almost no one takes a single drink. But,
more importantly...there is thought to be no safe level of drug or alcohol
consumption during pregnancy. Think what a problem this is, as one could be
drinking without knowing that one is pregnant. Of course, supposedly some
people have drunk alcohol during pregnancy and lactation and not produced a
child with FAS or supposedly lesser effects.


>At 04:11 PM 7/12/99 -0400, Lawrence Murphy wrote:
>>As someone who spent 5 years on Canada's west coast as a psychotherapist in
>>alcohol and drug services I do think that FAS is a huge and significant
>>problem. I can also report that in those five years of dealing with severely
>>addicted people, I met no more than one or two who were not abused in
>>childhood. In particular, those who were sexually abused as children tended
>>to face the most significant challenges in recovery.


I believe that most people who seriously reflect on substance abuse would
agree with you. (I hope, anyway!) Thus, we would all hopefully work to
prevent the causes of substance abuse and there would be no FAS. Of course,
people with FAS also run the gamut...they are victims of abuse and
perpetrators of abuse. Some statistics indicate that more than 50% of
people in prison are suffers of alcohol related neurological disorders.

(Snip)


>>I would certainly support a constructively critical letter Christine. Let me
>>know if I can help.
>>

I strongly recommend that a letter be constructive and not blaming. If you
want to reach people dealing with this problem, you need some understanding
of where they have been....a principle I'm sure we all understand and agree
with.


Rhonda Love








Professor Rhonda Love, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Department of Public Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto
12 Queen's Park Crescent West
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA   M5S 1A8

Tel:    416-978-7514
Fax:    416-978-2087
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