[Maynard75]

I took DS to his first peds visit in our home start today. He was born exposed to many drugs and spent 3 weeks in the nicu. While we were out of state we say a pediatrician 3 times out of state who had a lot of experience working with exposed children and was refered to us by the nicu. I say this because when we were at the doctor today she asked if DS was exposed to alcohol. She made a comment about his nose then said that it could just be genetic. None of the doctors out of state mentioned FAS. I'm not sure how to take that comment. I know that this doctor does not specialize exposure and that we live in an area where there is not a lot of it around us, we have to go into the city to see it. I feel like if there were signs the nicu or other doctor would have said something.

[Momoftwoboyz]

Im by no means an expert, but I do remember reading somewhere (when we were looking at adopting from Russia) that the facial characteristics may not be apparent untill toddler/preschool age or older, that infants can "hide" some of the facial features.
From what Ive been learning, if the Bmom abused drugs, alcohol is likely too.
Good luck to you and your little one... we hope to work with substance abuse babies when we finish getting licensed.

[Jensboys]

Unless severe, facial characteristics in infancy are difficult to see.

I would say though, very bluntly, that it is the VERY rare drug user that isn't also drinking lots of alcohol. It would be expected that a poly drug exposed baby would also be prenatally exposed to alcohol.

[Larue]

I have to agree with the other posters...that's its likey that there was some level of alcohol exposure if there was drug exposure. Is there somewhere in your area where you can go for a FAS screening?

[Barksum]

Not that it's particularly comforting, but the facial features are not an indication of 'more severe impairment'. They're just a visible sign of prenatal exposure. A child may have significant brain differences, or minor brain differences, with or without the facial features associated with FAS.

The facial features may be highly visible, or more subtle. There is 'partial FAS', in which there are some visible differences but not all of the markers associated with full FAS. The brain impairment is not linked to the facial features, but people tend to place a lot of significance on facial features because they are visible. Most of my kids don't have 'screaming facial features', but they do have the invisible handicapping condition of the brain differences created by drugs and alcohol.