Children of FAE/FAS mothers...?

FASD is ONLY possible when the MOTHER DRINKS during pregnancy. There isn't a chance that you will catch FASD or that it will be passed down through generations. A wonderful site for FASD information is [url=http://www.mofas.org]mofas.org | Home[/url]

I understand that without alcohol consumption during pregnancy the baby will not have FASD. My question is more about the study of inherited BEHAVIORS (maybe propensity to addiction, emotional issues, etc, etc) from mother to child. Or traits that are passed down from FAE generation to non-FAE generation. For example, there are some genetic components to schizophrenia. But studies are showing there are some environmental, including in utero. It's believed to be genetic (susceptibility), AND environmental. Or even DNA damage that isn't attributed to a specific behavior (yet), but has been studied and shown to pass from FAE mother to child. Those are the kinds of things I'm talking about.

I understand that without alcohol consumption during pregnancy the baby will not have FASD. My question is more about the study of inherited BEHAVIORS (maybe propensity to addiction, emotional issues, etc, etc) from mother to child. Or traits that are passed down from FAE generation to non-FAE generation. For example, there are some genetic components to schizophrenia. But studies are showing there are some environmental, including in utero. It's believed to be genetic (susceptibility), AND environmental. Or even DNA damage that isn't attributed to a specific behavior (yet), but has been studied and shown to pass from FAE mother to child. Those are the kinds of things I'm talking about. eta: what I meant by a higher rate in children, is that if a woman was FAE/FAS she is more likely to drink during pregnancy and have a child with FAE/FAS. I OTHER than that specific scenario, IF the woman does not drink during pregnancy, what traits pass on. Sorry if I was unclear.

The only thing I can think of is if a parent had challenges because of FASd that affected how they parented, then their parenting might affect their child. But there is nothing in all the research and reading I have done that says that a parent who has FASD will have a child with similar struggles. It might be more the tendency towards addictive behavior that would be an issue, which is a known trait of children with FASD from my understanding.

Children of alcoholics (thus, kids with FASD) are more likely to be alcoholic. However, if they are not reared by alcoholics I don't know what the statistics are. Dh was the child of people who had addictions. He does not. My grandparents were alcoholics, three of their four children are non-drinkers, one is an alcoholic.So while problems can be generational, they aren't always due to genetics, or environment. I don't know if there are any statistics on children born to FASD moms, but not reared by them.

Not 100% sure, but I believe if you have one addict parent, you're 25% at risk for addiction. If 2 addict parents, you're 50% at risk for addiction. Possibly not phrased correctly, but you get the idea.AFA intelligence... there's a study on adopted and non-adopted children. Apparently, depending on intelligence of parents, there will be a 10-point difference in IQ. Pretty much what we expect, I think , if educational and learning opportunities not given to children in the home, the children are likely to have lower IQs. There was a 30-point spread across the study. (4 categories, Low IQ child/low IQ parents thru high IQ child/high IQ parents.)AFA genetics in children of ppl affected by birth defects. Totally anecdotal... a baby was adopted into my family who was "slow", it was believed that there was an incident during her birth, oxygen deprivation. She married a young man with similar history, several "normal" siblings and bio-parents. Their children are... normal. One person doesn't make a study or trend, but is my window for understanding that someone's brain could be damaged by xyz in pregnancy or at birth, yet have intact genetics.All of which could be unrelated to what you're asking....

I have not found any studies, either, and am very interested to know, also. I adopted my sister's two children. Their biological father has FAS and I've always wondered what if any affect the genetic factors might have. I would assume that if his own genetics were screwed up by prenatal alcohol abuse, that the genes he passes on could be affected as well. I can say my kids were screened in foster care and have no FAS features. They were both exposed to meth. prenatally. They are 5 & 6 now. My son was just diagnosed with ADHD (we could handle it at home, but he is out of control at school), as was bio. dad quite young. I was concerned for a long time about my son's cause and effect thinking, which made me concerned for drug affects or the genetics of the bio. dad. However, on a very low dose of Adderall it is clear that the ADHD was causing him to be so impulsive that he could not stop and think about consequences before acting out. He even told me yesterday that he doesn't have many friends at school because he's always in trouble. I didn't even know until that moment that he had the capacity to have insight into his own behavior like that. He is only on 5 mg. of Adderall and the teacher says he's done a complete 180. Anyways, I'd be interested in any studies you may find, too.

I am understanding that you are asking if mom was mentally retarded due to FAS what are the chances that her non-exposed shild would inherit that mental retardation (or whatever other manifestation of FAS). I could be wrong but I don't understand FAS to be a genetic coding condition. Meaning there is no genetic reason a child of FAS parents inherit any of the FAS characteristics of the children. FAS makes a child's body not develop correctly but it doesn't someone with FAS has different genes than someone without it. It is caused by issues in gestation, not genetics. To give you an idea of what I am trying to say, my daughter has a genetic condition. The moment she was conceived, it was predetermined she would have it. She had a different set of genes than a normal person. The moment an FAS child is conceived, they do not have a different set of genes because the moment the FAS parent was conceived that parent had a normal set of genes. Its only the drinking of the parent's parent during pregnancy that caused the FAS. The diseases that have some genetic component, like schizophrenia, I think we will find as genetics gets more advanced, that there is a specific combination of genes that you have to have to in order to have it but that that just because you have that combination of genes, does not mean it will ever manifest itself. Sort of like people with Sickle Cell trait. Having the trait does not mean you will ever have any manifestation. If you happen to be a sedentary type person, it won't ever cause a problem.

This is SORT OF what I was asking. But not about obvious things like mental retardation. Something less "genetic" like ADHD, or mental illness, where there is heredity at play, but not specifc genetic mutations. But there might be other underlying things that LEAD to the FAE in the bloodline, right? Like a parent with mental illness migh self-treat with alcohol, leading to a baby with FAS who grows up to have a child (non-FAS) but with perhaps that mental illness.So, maybe it's a chicken and egg thing.

If there is a family history of ADD/ADHD, or schizophrenia, or any other genetic/inherited illness, then the child would have the same probability of inheriting that illness as the general population.Sometimes it is very difficult to figure out if learning disabilities, or ADD/ADHD, or other possibly inheritated issues are alcohol related, or genetically related. If there is generational alcoholism you'd have to explore back however many generations to find one generation that wasn't prenatally exposed to alcohol. In some families this is impossible, both due to length of alcoholism within the family and also due to lack of records for the kids of things you wish to measure.As an example:My mother is one of four siblings born to a nominal alcoholic. (Not always drunk, but drank something most days, and very socially, as per their social set, whenever there was a get together for bridge, or their dance club, or ....) All of the four siblings have learning disabilities, ranging from relatively mild to severe. Three of them had eye problems (wandering eyes, crossed eyes, etc.), ranging from mild to severe. They have cousins who ALSO have learning disabilities. I don't know about the eyes...have to ask, I guess!I tend to think that while the alcohol exposure probably exacerbated the LD's, it likely wasn't the cause. My Dd has some similar issues, and I am tea-total. I don't even do wine for communion. So there has to be some genetic component in there. My Dd's issues, though, are far, far, FAR less than my mom's generation, so either my dad's DNA, and then my husband's DNA helped to counteract my mom's and my DNA, or the alcohol simply really did magnify the LD's and other issues to an alarming rate.From that tiny example you can also see how many factors go into this whole thing. Environment, the DNA of BOTH parents, etc.

FASD itself will not be inherited. FASD mothers are more likely to drink, and therefore more likely to have a child with FASD. But if they don't drink, there is no way that their child will have FASD. However, there are biological risk factors for alcoholism. There is some evidence that certain genetically-based traits, such as ADHD, can increase your risk of developing an addiction. If the mother of the FASD person (or the father - most fathers of FASD people are also alcoholics) had some of those genetic risk factors, they could pass it on to their FASD kid, who could then pass it on to a child of their own. But this is slight, and many of these genetic traits are also associated with having an unplanned pregnancy and therefore common in kids available for adoption even if there's no family history of alcoholism. There is also evidence that the same level of prenatal alcohol exposure can cause FASD in one kid and have no effect on another kid, and this is due to genetic factors (both in the kid and the mother). So an FASD parent is more likely to have a genetic predisposition to FASD, and to pass this on to their child. But as far as I know, if they aren't exposed to alcohol, these FASD susceptibility genes will have no effect. So, in essence - they're probably fine, or at least no worse off than any other adopted kid.

The following link is to a study which asked the same question. The study suggests that fetal alcohol syndrome can be passed down 4 generations from a mother with FAS and 2 generations from a father with FAS.

[quote=130011]What kinds of things are handed down to the next generation? I know the rate of FAE is higher with children of FAE parents, but IF the mom did not drink (I know, big if), what are the risks of baby having issues (any, mild to significant)?Any research studies about the next generation.Article about permanent DNA damage in alcohol exposed people that can be passed down to their children. I

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4040491/Kind of technical - but explains how genetic damage in FAS individuals is passed down in the DNA.