A Sobering Look at Alcohol
April 14, 2010
The restriction of full-strength takeaway alcohol sales may not work in every town but it worked for the families of Fitzroy Crossing where a generation of Indigenous people was being wiped out by alcohol.
They had endured 50 funerals in a year, tied to alcohol through disease, violence or accidents. Many of the Indigenous women and children knew nothing other than the fear of beatings from men who had consumed too much alcohol.
The women decided enough was enough. Now, their town is transformed. There is a new school and a new hospital. Women and children feel safer at home or brave enough to seek shelter before domestic violence starts.
The women of the town are taking another courageous step. They have invited experts in to undertake Australia’s first assessment of the prevalence of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), the legacy of maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy. They want to know what permanent intellectual and physical damage all this drinking has done to the community’s children. Paediatricians and researchers from the George Institute at the University of Sydney are soon to commence a screening program of all five to eight year olds in Fitzroy Crossing. Some fear it about half the children may be affected and many suspect they are seeing the disorders in the second generation.
The National Health and Medical Research Council in its Australian Guidelines to Reduce Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol, published in 2009, recommends that not drinking is the safest option for women who are pregnant or planning a pregnancy. Alcohol crosses the placenta, the NHMRC advises, and exposure of the foetus to alcohol may result in a spectrum of adverse effects, referred to collectively as FASD.
In the USA, a law was passed in 1989 requiring labels warning about the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. In Australia we seem to have a largely ambivalent approach with some pregnant women acutely aware of the potential dangers of drinking and others comforted by doctors’ assurances that a little drink in moderation “won’t hurt”.
An article in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health in March 2009, said the challenge for the Australian health professional was agreeing on a model for recognising and diagnosing FASD. “The diagnostic method must be evidence based, sensitive and specific, and account for other exposures during pregnancy and early life events. Training in application of the diagnostic method needs to be readily available in metropolitan and regional Australia. The University of Washington FASD 4-digit diagnostic code fulfils all of these best practice criteria, recommending itself as the method of choice.”
In the CMAJ (Canada) in May 2005 an article said: “Since FAS was first described in 1973,it has become apparent that it is complex; affected people exhibita wide range of expression, from severe growth restriction,intellectual disability, birth defects and characteristic dysmorphicfacial features to normal growth, facial features and intellectualabilities, but with lifelong deficits in several domains ofbrain function.”
Sadly for the children of Fitzroy Crossing, who are found to have FAS or FASD there is no cure. These children will carry the physical and intellectual consequences of their mother’s alcohol consumption. The tragedy is that FAS and FASD is totally preventable. Drawing attention to its prevalence, the women of Fitzroy Crossing hope will prevent it happening to others.
The efforts of the women, led by the grandmothers, some who are now raising the damaged children, are truly heroic. These women, with the support of some of their community, now have taken steps to modify alcohol access in their town. Now they have asked the medical specialists and researchers to precisely measure the disabling consequences of the town’s drunkenness and then they want help to give the children the best possible help, while educating the next generation about the dangers of alcohol for the developing foetus.
This is not exclusively or predominantly an Indigenous issue. The consequences of FAS and FASD are well-documented and there are well-developed responses in a number of countries including the USA, Canada and Poland.
It is time Australia, as a heaving drinking nation, started thinking a great deal more about our children. The women of Fitzroy Crossing are showing the way.
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