The center wanted to educate future health care professionals about FASD, the number one preventable cause of mental retardation and developmental disabilities in the western world.
Some facts they shared included:
Alcohol is one of the few substances that can pass into the brain of the fetus during pregnancy. That means a baby鈥檚 developing brain can be harmed any time that alcohol is there.聽
Alcohol during pregnancy can create a lifelong brain that:
- Can鈥檛 link cause and effect
- Forgets things
- Can鈥檛 read social cues
- Thinks like the brain of a younger person
- Can鈥檛 move information from one situation to another
- Lacks common sense
A person with FASD can look like everyone else and talk well but still have a brain that works very differently.