A National Directory of Drug Treatment Centers and Alcohol Treatment Centers, Therapists and Specialists. A free, simple directory providing assistance and guidance for those seeking help regarding alcohol addiction, drug addiction, dependency and many other conditions that affect the mind, body and soul.
Call
888-647-0579
to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.
Who Answers?
Boozing mothers affect babies’ response to pain: Study
Prenatal exposure to alcohol dulls the pain response in babies, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia.
The research, which will be published in the April issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, showed that even healthy babies whose mothers drank while they were pregnant were affected by the alcohol.
The tests were done in a region of South Africa where 11 per cent of children have fetal alcohol syndrome — compared to the Canadian rate of 0.9 per cent.
UBC pediatrics professor Dr. Tim Oberlander and co-researchers from B.C., Michigan and South Africa determined the pain response by pricking the babies’ heels and squeezing to collect drops of blood — standard screening tests for metabolic diseases including hypothyroidism.
Infants whose mothers consumed at least 14 drinks per week while pregnant or had been binge drinking before delivery did not react to the pain the way babies born to a control group of non-drinking moms did.
The researchers catalogued the babies’ heart rate, facial grimacing and other measures of pain.
“This study is the first to document a relationship between prenatal alcohol exposure and biobehavioural responses to a noxious event in human newborns,” the researchers said in a statement. They added that how the infants react to pain may put them at a risk for problems later in life.
Previously studies have shown that as adults, people with fetal alcohol syndrome have increased anxiety, depression and aggression and altered responses to stress. Yet as infants, as shown by the current study, they have a dulled response.
The $40,000 study was funded by the UBC Child and Family Research Institute, Wayne State University and the state of Michigan.
For years, Ben had assumed all alcoholics were homeless men huddling below bridges inside cardboard boxes and nursing bottles out of paper bags like he saw in movies. But that was before Ben began college and came to know an alcoholic much more personally — himself. In less than one semester, Ben, who did not….
The young people of the 21st century encounter life situations, pressures and temptations unlike any other generation before them. These experiences coupled with the volatile hormonal changes taking place in teens make for a population highly susceptible to substance abuse issues. Youth substance abuse rates remain a cause for concern among parents, teachers and communities….
Faith-based organizations continue to meet vital social needs within communities across the country. According to the Manhattan Institute, faith-based organizations contribute an estimated $20 billion in private funding to social service agencies on an annual basis. With alcoholism a continuing social problem within the U.S., Christian alcohol treatment centers offer a multi-faceted treatment approach to….
Opiate overdoses from heroin and prescription pain medications have reached epidemic proportions over the course of the last decade. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, opiate-induced overdose deaths have increased from 4,030 in 1999 to 16,651 in 2010. For over three decades, emergency responders have used naloxone as an opiate overdose treatment….
The hazards of binge drinking have been well documented, both for those of legal drinking age and those under 21. The problem, as State Representative Phyllis Kahn sees it, is that young people never learn first-hand how to drink responsibly. The veteran Minneapolis Democrat’s solution would be to legalize teen drinking in certain circumstances, in….
