During high school, I would babysit for families in my neighborhood to raise money for college. One of the families I babysat for, had a newborn baby. Right off the bat, I noticed the features of the newborn being different from what I was used to seeing. The baby had fetal alcohol syndrome. Some of the features I noticed were a small, disproportionate head, and delays in their learning ability. Furthermore, the baby was very small and some of its limbs were deformed. I included a picture from The Cleveland Clinic’s article, “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome”, in order to provide a more in-depth visual.
Fetal alcohol syndrome is caused when the mother drinks alcohol during her pregnancy. During pregnancy, alcohol is passed down in the bloodstream to the umbilical cord. The baby is not able to metabolize the alcohol like an adult would, resulting in this syndrome.
I was able to babysit this child for years and as the years went on, I noticed more symptoms. These included vision issues, delayed speech development, poor coordination, and difficulty concentrating. In the couple years I babysat, I noticed slow growth in the child as well. As this baby grows up, it will experience increased difficulty in tasks that are easy for a child without dealing with fetal alcohol syndrome. Furthermore, lifelong brain abnormalities are going to be present.
When diagnosing fetal alcohol syndrome, it can often get confused with other disorders. These disorders consist of autism, ADHD, or Williams syndrome. Often fetal alcohol syndrome can get diagnosed at birth due to the physical abnormalities present, however if it goes undiagnosed, it can be observed based off of mild social or intellectual concerns. The child I was babysitting was diagnosed at birth, as the physical abnormalities were definitely present. Since meeting this child, I have always been concerned about fetal alcohol syndrome, and feel sympathy for those who have it. The symptoms are not something that can be permanently cured, and the child is always going to struggle more than their peers.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15677-fetal-alcohol-syndrome
I also have an experience with a person who had fetal alcohol syndrome, but I met her later than when she was a baby. One of my good friends in middle school had all of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome, but I didn’t realize that they were symptoms until later in my life. What I had noticed, and other kids noticed, was that she wasn’t able to pick up on things or learn things very quickly. She also had to wear glasses because she wasn’t able to see and didn’t really know how to communicate with our other peers. This caused her to get bullied often, whether it was for her appearance or her inability to process information. I know that it eventually got so bad that she had to move away, but she was never able to fully understand why this was happening to her at the time. She tried to be nice and funny to everyone, but they were the types of things you would say if you were younger than we were. She got misunderstood a lot and sometimes, even I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. That didn’t take away from the fact that she was nice and funny in her own special way, but being a child with fetal alcohol syndrome can be brutal.