40,000 babies are born prenatally exposed to alcohol or other drugs. Along with that, on average, it is estimated that the costs can range anywhere from $75million to $4.022 billion per year when taking care of the children that have it. Paying for their medical needs and taking care of them in general, are the two main factors that require this money. According to mayoclinic.org, it is defined as “Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a condition that results from alcohol exposure during pregnancy. Problems that may be caused by fetal alcohol syndrome include physical deformities, mental retardation, learning disorders, vision difficulties, and behavioral problems. The problems caused by fetal alcohol syndrome vary from child to child, but defects caused by this are irreversible.”
Pregnant mothers should have to face harsher consequences if they are found to be intoxicated or have been reported to have consumed alcohol. Mothers who are found to have consumed alcohol while pregnant by a law enforcement or a mandated reporter should undergo wellness checks, drug and alcohol tests, and if necessary detox for the duration of the pregnancy along with fines if it’s not the first occasion because of the long term consequences the child may potentially face mentally, socially, and medically.

A child with FAS has conditions and special needs that are lifelong. Since there are so many different symptoms and not just one, it is often called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorders (FASD). Symptoms include head shrinking in circumference, weight struggles, 98% develop ADD or ADHD by third grade (7 or 8 years old).They may be socially immature have poor decision making skills, and must be monitored at all times to ensure safe choices are being made. The child may be similar to a child who has mild to moderate retardation. When they are older they may be sexually promiscuous, often procreating children with FAS also. Due to these many special needs, the child will need to constantly learn how to appropriately interact with people and their environment each and every day, as if they are learning it for the first time. For example, a child will have to be reminded appropriate behaviors such as not running up and hugging strangers. This is very hard to control because they don’t have self-regulation since the frontal lobe is damaged.

Along with special needs, medical issues are outstanding and it is 10 times more common that Down syndrome. The alcohol in eutro causes many issues including cell death, blood flow, weight struggles, and impairment in the patterns in the developing fetal brains. The parts of the brain that are most effected are the Corpus Callosum and Cerebellum. The Corpus Callosum is to communicate motor, sensory, and cognitive information shared between the 2 hemispheres. The Cerebellum processes input from other areas of the brain to coordinate motor and cognitive skills. If that area is affected due to a mothers alcohol use, the child will have trouble coordinating movements, maintaining balance, and fine motor skills (nofas.org). According to an Article written by Dr. Danny Wedding, entitled Psychologists' knowledge and attitudes about fetal alcohol syndrome, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and alcohol use during pregnancy, Infants exposed to alcohol in utero experience dramatically greater risk for birth defects, mental retardation, and neurodevelopmental disorders. If a child is drunk or high in the womb, the first few months after birth are incredibly challenging; the child is essentially coming down from a high and is going through detox just like anybody else who was under the influence would. The baby is in an immense amount of pain and is very hard to soothe. Sometimes the child will stay up all night crying and screaming without actually being awake.
Many state legislatures have realized the impact that a mother who drinks while pregnant will not only have on the unborn child, but on families, human service health agencies, and tax payers as well. Tax payers will have to help pay for the compensation of foster families taking care of the child because he/she will likely have been removed from the home (if the child or the mother tests positive for blood alcohol at the hospital), as well as Medicaid and assisted living after 18 if they are unable to live by themselves or with a family member and tax payers will also have to pay for the possible incarceration of the mother. The effect it will have on the families will additionally be exponential. If the mother is incapable of caring for the child ad he/she is taken away by social services, they will first try and place with a family member and if there is no family available, the child will be placed into state custody and be put into a foster home. The educational system is impacted because they have to change of teaching and educating this child who has delays but might not meet the requirements of special needs and when the child is put into a special needs class, they are also impacted. Social workers are also impacted because they have to care for this child by going to court hearings, making plans for reunification, planning and supervising visits and overall being responsible for the child. One mother’s decision can affect a substantial amount of people in the community, from tax payers to the people who care for the child like their own, staying up with them at night, loving like they’re apart of the family and wanting the absolute best for them. Everyone is impacted in one way or another, paying for them to get healthcare or teaching them how to survive on their own, a lot of the time the mother isn’t even there for half of it. As a foster sister, seeing them struggle with something they didn’t even ask for is the most difficult thing you can imagine, when you see a child who has a hole in her heart because of her mother’s alcohol consumption and methamphetamine while is her mother isn’t even there will break your heart.

Though some might argue that the state does have things that will help the child and essentially the parents will have consequences for the choices they have made, such as drug court which Nevada was 1 of the first states to enact, is a program that allows the parent(s) to gain the proper skills they need to parent their child with classes, and support from other previous but now clean addicts or community helpers that donate their time while staying clean and on the fast track to getting their kids back. This goes hand and hand with Social Services taking the child away and trying to reunify. The parent has to prove that they are capable of taking care of a child and achieve a certain number of things that will help them gain better knowledge and understanding of the issues the child will now face due to their mistakes. But, the parent is so coddled and has so many support systems, that when they get their kids back, they don’t know how to function on their own without their hand being held. If they do get their child taken away, due to prenatal alcohol exposure, the only way they can actually take the child is if he/she of the mother tests positive at birth for alcohol or drugs. This should not be easy, if a mother is high 1 week before and her system is essentially cleared of the drugs/alcohol, the baby will not be removed from custody. When the child is removed, the parents are allowed up to 3 visits a week, supervised, then unsupervised, then overnight visitations. If and when the parents get the child back, they are to repay the state the money that has cost to keep the child in care. However, very rarely do the parents actually them back and often the child is taken away again.


A bill that has been passed in Nevada bill number SB 296 which discusses the criminalization of mothers who choose to consume alcohol while pregnant, in summary says, they want to have interstate communication in order to ensure that if an effected child is moved out of state, state officials will communicate with each other regarding the best interests and services of the child. This is good, and it does ensure the child safety if they move states, however, it doesn’t prevent a mother to stop drinking while pregnant; it just helps do damage control after the fact.
Based on these overwhelming facts, pregnant mothers should be forced to face more consequences if they are found to be intoxicated or have been reported to have consumed alcohol. Mothers who are found to be drinking while pregnant should undergo wellness checks, drug and alcohol tests, and if necessary detox for the duration of the pregnancy along with fines if not the first occasion, because of their lack of concern for anyone else and for creating such a huge difficulty and obstacle for the child throughout their entire life. That one decision they made when they didn’t think about their baby could have cost their baby everything. For me, the hardest part of caring for a child with FAS is that they didn’t do anything to deserve the difficulties that they are faced with and the ignorant people they will face in life.