fetus winning: The Very Beginning of FASD & The Suicide of Michael Dorris

My notes here all come from the book, The Broken Cord.

The book The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris is a very moving account of a single, Native man who adopted a small child with FAS. His battle with the behaviour of this child and the ignorance of the syndrome in both himself and the community, sent him on a mission to conquer, (what is now known as), the FAS mystery.

My interest was sparked by the fact that I was born to alcoholic parents. I was taken away from them at six months of age. Unfortunately I suffer with partial foetal alcohol syndrome (FAE) and the effects of alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND). Living with and feeling the effects is something I don’t get used to. It is continuously frustrating, even maddening. So I am not as not as empathetic for some particular drinking pregnant women (ones that drank every day) that many aftercare societies are. Those societies are saying,"What about the poor mother who has to face her mistakes." I say, "What about the life sentence for the child."

I met my birth parents and they are happy with their drinking lives and with their ups and downs. I, however, seem to be on downtime much of the time. I struggle to make the most of the restraining features of my syndrome, such as chronic depression and bi-polar disease, only two of the many neurological brain injury results. A note: I'd like to remind everyone that I certainly am empathetic for the children born with any of the FASD umbrella syndromes. ARND, ARBD, FAE, FASD. And what keeps me going is that I know how to save thousands of babies if I have the means to do it (money, staff, etc.). Did I mention money?

Michael Dorris won great respect for having adopted three FAS children; at that time, little was known about the condition, or what to expect when parenting a FAS child, and Dorris' work put FAS on the map. (And Now?!?) However, Dorris suffered from severe depression, and he and Erdrich (wife) separated in 1996. That December, an investigation was initiated against Dorris in Hennepin County, Minnesota, upon suspicion that he had sexually abused one of his daughters. Facing criminal charges, Dorris hung himself in a New Hampshire hotel room.

Michael Anthony Dorris
30 January 1945, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
11 April 1997, Concord, New Hampshire, USA (suicide)

Here are the relevant points of from the book that relate to FAS (as it was originally termed):

Summarized By Anthony Baker

The Broken Cord

By Michael Dorris

In 1973 a University of Washington group headed by Dr. David W. Smith of the department of paediatrics, observed retarded intrauterine growth in ten out of twelve new born infants of mothers with chronic alcoholism; they ultimately described an apparent consistent pattern of physiological deformities in these children and gave it a name: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).

Not instantly recognized as a major breakthrough by most of the academic community, only three scientific or clinical papers on the subject appeared worldwide that year. In 1985 the annual rate of FAS-related professional documentation had increased to almost 2,000 articles.

Making Monsters:

For the past two decades [then] it has become irrefutably evident that alcohol is a terratogen (a word deriving from the Greek roots “Terrato” and “genes,” literally – to make monsters), the scientific expression for a chemical agent that in certain doses can cause birth defects.

Passing the Placental Barrier:

Alarming articles in respected, usually staid, professional publications such as the American Journal of Obstetric Gynecology have attested to the fact that alcohol passes the placental barrier freely in certain animals. Acute intoxication of the embryo has been recorded for lambs and human beings.

The human foetus has a reduced capacity to eliminate alcohol and therefore, in higher concentrations tend to be higher in utero than in the rest of the mother’s system by the end of her intoxication and are likely to endure there for longer periods. The baby in the womb becomes more drunk than its mother with every drink of liquor, wine or beer she takes. By the time she feels tipsy and socially compelled to refuse a refill, the child she carries could, in effect, have already passed out. And as Dr, Cartez F. Enloe, editor of Nutrition Today, put it, “For the foetus, the hangover could last a lifetime.”

Learning and IQ:

Probably mental deficiency, in varying degrees, is the most debilitating aspect of FAS in those children who survive. The mean IQ for such individuals falls, according to various studies, between 65 and 80, from, in the terminology of psychological testing, “mildly retarded” through “borderline” to “dull normal,” although individuals with IQ’s as low as 15 or as high as 105 have been positively diagnosed.

FAS children at all ages and stages of growth lag behind their peers in everything from rate of language acquisition to development of academic skills in arithmetic. Often these learning problems are not apparent until considerably after birth and they seem to appear quite independently of environment.

Fetal Alcohol Effect:

Foetal Alcohol Effect (FAE), the name given to any prepasturition alcohol-induced developmental impairment that entails less the full compliment of FAS symptoms, is harder to diagnose, more subtle, but in many respects is just as debilitating as the full syndrome and it is far more widespread within the general population.

In relatively mild cases, FAE might be suggested by a repeated failure to master the multiplication tables, to grasp how to gauge time, or to conform to patterns of social functioning that depend on internal appreciation of long-term consequences or, “morality.” It might be indicated by persistent head and body rocking, clumsiness, or difficulty with peers of life management problems.

Dr. Forbes reports that FAE children may “show poor judgment and may repeat behaviours that have had bad outcomes in the past.” Some of these children have observed using large vocabularies without really understanding the content of what they are saying. As a result, they may initially sound more capable than they are. In other words, they don’t learn from their mistakes and they don’t know what they are talking about.

FAS from Birth:

At birth, infants with FAS may be tremulous, irritable, over-reactive to sounds, and have feeding difficulties. They typically fail to thrive and show a weak sucking ability. Alcohol affect might surface in a single heart or joint malfunction or it might cause cerebral palsy.

In maturing children, the legacy of maternal drinking may become evident in tests that indicate marginal retardation or in perception disturbances, short memory span, distractibility, interrupted or unusual sleep patterns and emotional instability. Later in life these children may be hyperactive, inattentive, impulsive, fearless, indiscriminate in their reactions to friends and strangers; they may also demonstrate poor motor function or thinking disorders.

To Pregnant Women:

Nine months from now something bad is going to happen to the rest of your child’s life if you drink today.

Pregnancies:

The chances of a woman who had already given birth to one FAS child were 771 over a 1,000 that she would bear another.

Approximately 7,542 FAS babies were born in the United States each year and didn’t include borderline FAE cases. The mean birth weight was around 5 pounds and only 66% had been carried to term. The brain was one of the first organs to be developed and one of the last to be completed; it was consequently at risk for the longest period during gestation.

Dr. Aase noted that many off springs of mothers who drank during their pregnancy appeared to be normal but when asked the rhetorical question: “Are they as normal as they might?” He pointed out that most recent brain analysis of FAS victims showed aberrant cell migration and division, not merely a growth deficit, and that the hypothalamus – the part of the brain that controls learning, intellect, and performance – was almost always affected. After years of experience, he was not optimistic that what he called “passive education efforts” would significantly reduce prenatal drinking. “High risk activity,” he concluded, “is not just from lack of knowledge.”

FAS Adults:

A group of FAS diagnosed adults had an average IQ of 66. The group as a whole functioning at the fourth grade level for spelling and second grade level for math. Math skills were known for being the best predictors for potential adult independence within a community and as result of their low achievement capability, many patients have trouble making change at the store, let alone managing their finances. Poor arithmetic scores also reflect poor memory and poor abstract thinking.

Government services are normally available only for people with IQ’s of of 70 or below which meant that approximately 42 percent of those diagnosed in one particular study group were not eligible. Yet, almost none of these people had lived with their birth mothers beyond their third year, if that long, and in fact 69% of their biological mothers were known to be deceased.

There were some consisted common denominators that most members of the study group shared in both the physical and the behavioural arenas. 85% had abnormalities of the philtrum. 80% had teeth problems and a majority were unusual in regard to head shape, hirsutism, fingers, nose, ears, palms, back/neck/spine, and mid-face. 86% had experienced neglect; 52% abuse; 80% had attention deficits; 73% had memory problems; 72% had been classified as hyperactive at some point in their development. A majority were characterized by wilful inadvertent disobedience and by school truancy. 95% could not handle money on their own regardless of sex, age, educational level or background. None managed their own checking accounts. None were financially self-supporting. Only one held a full time job. Ordinary duties like taking care of their own health, looking after their own clothes, saving money, and making purchases independently, were accomplished by only 4 of the 61 patients in the sample – and they were diagnosed as FAE with IQ scores of 70 and up. Only half of all of those surveyed were able to care for all their hygienic needs.

Behaviour:

The outgoing, excessively friendly manner seem as positive in younger children became more and more of a problem as these people grew up. It is often combined with overly tactile behaviour, again, similar to what is seen in very young children. But adolescents and adults who have little sense of personal space are very “touchy” and have inappropriate and excessive curiosity, are often disliked and shunned by their peer group. And even worse, FAE/FAS victims “are easily influenced by others and seem to have difficulty comprehending social situations, remembering the appropriate behaviour and knowing when to say “no.”

Despite their behavioural problems, most adolescents and adults with FAS/FAE remained “sweet” in temperament and helpful and considerate in interpersonal interactions as they matured.

The major changes seen from preadolescence to adolescence and adulthood are increasingly inappropriate sexual behaviour, iso;ation, loneliness, depression; and inappropriate expectations for eventual work, schooling and independence. In their live there is never a “happily ever after.”

Alcoholic Fathers:

Laboratory researchers at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, had potentially disturbing news for alcoholic fathers as well. In January 1990, Dr. J, Cicero, a pharmacologist, described the results of an experiment in which male alcoholic rats were bred with healthy females. While their male offspring had normal body weight at birth they did not perform as well as their counterparts on memory tests in mazes.

Disturbing Fact:

In 1988, 11% of all infants born in the United States tested positive for cocaine or alcohol the first time their blood was drawn.