[ChrisnDan]

Hi -- I am new to the board. We have been matched with a 7 month old baby boy who was born exposed to alcohol and meth. We will have him tested for FAS before adoption but would like any imput you have on little ones exposed to these drugs. He is delayed in his motor skills and cannot hold a bottle yet. Any reference material would also be appreciated.

My husband and I are the proud parents of a 3 year old that we adopted. She is our life and did not have these issues.

[hope4kids]

At this age it may be difficult to rule FAS in or out. Facial features sometimes become more obvious into toddlerhood. There is also FAE to consider. FAE children have many of the same issues as FAS kids minus the facial features. So a question to ask yourself is, do I want to parent a child who may well have FAS issues?

[kidfinder]

There is a great deal published on FAS, but very little on meth exposure. I am a clinical biochemist and have applied for children with meth exposure, but not alcohol exposure.

A child diagnosed with FAS can have profound difficulties as alcohol can interfere with cellular membrane formation (and lots of other stuff) during the child's development resulting in a numerous difficulties.

Meth is a different story. I recently checked all of the available literature on the effects of meth on devlopment. Unfortunately there is very little work done in the area. The most recent work was conducted on rats and seems to suggest that neonatal exposure may result in a dopamine (a hormone) reduction. The concern is that repeated exposure post birth (drug experimentation) may increase the child's risk of developing Parkinsons disease. A few studies have tracked the outcomes of natal exposure to meth versus the unexposed and found few statistically significant differences in observed behavioral or cognitive abilities; altough, these studies were NOT conducted with a statistically significant population (i.e. there were very few children involved in the studies). While VERY technical in nature, PubMed.com is a searchable database of scientific journals for health and research professionals and allows access to journal abstracts and full articles for purchase. Good luck. Please feel free to e-mail me with any technical questions.

[Barksum]

I'm really tired here, but am going to attempt to be coherent!! If I'm not, please post with any questions! LOL

Our oldest son was exposed to methamphetamines and alcohol. He has some issues that we know are due to the alcohol. He is now 5 years old and doing well, but is socially and emotionally about 3 to 3 1/2 years old. It makes for an interesting mix, since he's very bright in many areas, is very good with fine motor skills, etc., but still acts like a 3 year old in many ways. He likely has alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder, but we are having a difficult time getting an official diagnosis. He also has dysfunction of sensory integration.

When we adopted him at age 26 months we had NO idea that we'd be dealing with these kinds of issues. In fact, we said, "NO children with FAS/FAE." Well, perhaps in a perfect world....

Now I can't imagine NOT having him in our lives. Yes, he is "high maintenence" and needs tons of prompts and reminders to get through everyday routines. He requires much reassurance and "extra" attention. (I'm not sure that it's "extra" attention, since all children have different levels of need, regardless of prenatal history.) We have worked with a counsellor who specializes in fetal alcohol issues, an occupational therapist, our pediatrician and a child therapist. Our son is doing well, we've learned new things, we continue to learn new things and are better able to look at life, children and parenting from a totally different perspective now. It takes lots of time, lots of patience and learning to be your own detective because YOU (the parent) have to determine what is the trigger for behaviors, how to work through it and help your child to adapt. Not an easy task, especially when fetal alcohol is so widely undiagnosed, misunderstood or not acknowledged by the medical profession, education professionals, mental health professionals, etc.

However, if you do not believe that you want to parent a child with fetal alcohol issues, you should bow out now. You may not know the extent of the brain impairment (if any) for a few years. For us finding out that our son had fetal alcohol related impairments was very difficult at the beginning and continues to be something of a challenge, but did not cause us to regret adopting our son, nor did it negatively impact the way we felt about him. I know that if we'd known when we were waiting to adopt that he had these issues we would have been scared and probably not gone through with the adoption. I'm so glad that this didn't happen...but it's been a rough road at times.

I'd recommend doing a search on the internet using "fetal alcohol syndrome", "fetal alcohol effects", "alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorders", "prenatal exposure to alcohol", "teratrogen", etc.. Children with fetal alcohol problems can impairments that cover a whole continuum brain impairments from extremely mild to extremely severe. It depends on how much and when the biological mother drank, how her body metabolized alcohol, etc.

One program that we have used is http://www.fascets.org I would encourage you to call or email the contact person there and talk with them personally. They can give you just the information you are looking for, and have practical experience in working with children and families as they deal with fetal alcohol.

[Anita King]

We are in the process of adopting two brothers (22 months and 3 1/2) who have FAE/FAS and were born meth positive. I have a hard time believing that a meth baby wouldn't also be alcohol exposed as the usage seems to go hand in hand (all those awake hours of meth high are spent drinking). As care for FAE/FAS children is so difficult, I feel badly for those who adopt not prepared for what they're getting into. I wouldn't advise adopting a meth exposed baby unless you are prepared for the possibility of alcohol damage.

[MelissaG]

We do foster care and right now we have three boys two of which are brothers and were meth exposed at birth. Our oldest is 3 yr and we just had him evaluated for preschool, we were told after that eval. we needed to have him evaluated by our counties child specialist because he was showing certain signs that he may not be ready for school yet. We did this and were told that he may act like a 3 yr old in some areas but in others, ie: speech, fine motor, attention, emotional he is acting at a maybe 1 1/2 to 2 yr old level. We were also told that his brother 2ys may also have some of these issues as well.
We have been waiting for almost 2 weeks now to hear back from the specialist to see what we can do but nothing.
Does anyone have any thoughts, ideas..........?
We'd appreciate anything.
Thanks,
MelissaG