Response needed to below discussion post. APA 7 format. 1 peer reviewed reference within last 5 years
Approximately 10% of women consume alcohol during their pregnancy and these prevalences are expected to increase based on the increase of the social acceptance around women’s alcohol use (Popova, et al., 2023). Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) affects 2.3% of the population and leads to lifelong issues. It can cause neurocognitive deficits, physical deformities, and problems with sensory processing (Chu, et al., 2023). FAS can also affect various organ systems and the abnormalities infants face may persist throughout their lifetime and make them more susceptible to chronic diseases. For example, one effect of exposure to alcohol in utero is congenital heart disease (CHD), which requires life-long medical care that can consists of surgeries to fix congenial defects. Infants that grow into adulthood with CHD are often at a higher risk of hypertension, stroke, or heart attack (Chung et al., 2021).
It is important as a practitioner to not show judgement towards patients and build rapport to form a trusting relationship. While the practitioner may not agree with the mother who is drinking in the first trimester, the practitioner must keep in mind that the young 23-year-old may not be well educated on the effects drinking has on the fetus. Any decrease in alcohol use during pregnancy has been shown to benefit fetal health outcomes, so it is imperative that the practitioner serve as educator and support system for mothers. Brief interventions (BIs) are health-care centric approaches that involve short advice or counselling sessions that have been shown to moderately increase abstinence during pregnancy. BIs are low-cost and are often paired with screening approaches (Popova et al., 2023). Practitioners can use screening tools to better assess mothers at risk for drinking during pregnancy and assess reasons for drinking. Often times, the mother may not be well educated and practitioners can use BIs as an intervention to educate and counsel young mothers to promote better outcomes for the mother and the infant.
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