A team of scientists with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently released new and improved guidelines to help doctors more accurately diagnose fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) organized the guidelines and published the proposed clinical guidelines. The guidelines had last been updated in 2005, and the new release will clarify and expand the topics for health professionals.
“These new guidelines will be a valuable resource for clinicians to accurately diagnose infants and children who were affected by alcohol exposure before birth,” NIAAA Director Dr. George Koob said. “They represent the most data-driven diagnostic criteria for fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder produced to date.”
FASD happens when a mother drinks alcohol during her pregnancy. This causes a variety of problems for the infant.
There are four subtypes of FASD. The new guidelines used information from 10,000 people to create a new definition of FASD. It will help doctors to diagnose FASD based on physical and facial deformities and cognitive and behavioral problems.
“These four diagnostic categories remain the most apt descriptors of the range of disabilities observed within the continuum of FASD,” Dr. Kenneth Warren, senior advisor to the NIAAA director, who co-authored the updated guidelines, said. “We have refined the guidelines to reflect our collective expertise gained through the evaluation of more 10,000 children in domestic and international venues.”
