ce when compared with children who had not been exposed to alcohol. Children that were exposed to less than one drink a day were smaller than the non-exposed children but larger than the more heavily exposed children. The attempt to understand FAS has lead to new areas of research attempting to discover the mechanism that causes defects. As of now the exact mechanism is not known. One theory suggest that alcohol increases placental contractility and thereby decreases oxygen supply to the growing embryo. A lack of necessary oxygen to a growing brain is no doubt the result of alcohols work but exactly how it happens is still under investigation.In the United States, epidemiological data suggest that the rates of FAS tend to higher in African American and Native Americans than whites of similar socioeconomic status. A survey complied by the centers for disease control and prevention reviewed more than 4.6 million births in approximately 1,200 hospitals and showed considerable differences in occurrence of FAS among racial groups. The reason for variance among these groups remains unclear. Among Native Americans, rates of FAS even varied between the different tribes. This may be attributed to nutrition, fertility, or metabolic differences in the genetic makeup of each tribe. Also Native American family culture can influence drinking patterns often leading to a higher rate of alcohol consumption. Among factors to consider, alcohol consumption is frequently associated with drug abuse, smoking, and malnutrition. All of these factors can cause serious harm to the developing embryo of a child. It is difficult for researchers to decide which effects are caused by alcohol alone. To clearly distinguish a child as having FAS poses a difficult thing for researchers. They soon began to realize that they were encountering children with some, but not all the classical signs of FAS. Because a diagnosis of FAS demands the presence of al...
