Madam, - For almost 30 years Irish companies exporting alcohol to the US have been required by law to warn women of the risks when alcohol is consumed in pregnancy.
However, the same products sold in the Irish market do not offer that information, and so knowledge of the potential for harm, which will not always be evident at birth, is withheld.
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is the rarest of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, forming only a fraction of the outcomes resulting from pre-natal exposure to alcohol. Alcohol-related neuro-developmental disorder is far more prevalent, but as the signs are far more subtle, it is vastly under-recognised and under-reported.
Every woman has both the right to know that all alcohol consumed in pregnancy will reach her baby, and the right to have some choice in giving her baby the best start possible. - Yours, etc,
MICHELE SAVAGE, Spokesperson, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Ireland, Glendale Park, Dublin 12