Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Native Culture

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a title given to an irreversible, lifelong condition: a group of physical and mental birth defects caused by a woman drinking alcoholic beverages during pregnancy. It was not until 1973, only some thirty years ago, that Dr. Jones and Dr. Smith coined the term "fetal alcohol syndrome" or FAS to describe these patterns of abnormalities observed in the children born to drinking mothers. Though the idea had been toyed with for many, many years before, it was mainly thought that malnutrition might be responsible for these defects. …