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Cover image of Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility
Cover image of Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility
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Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Diagnosis of Moral Disorder

Elizabeth M. Armstrong

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In American society, the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy is considered dangerous, irresponsible, and in some cases illegal. Pregnant women who have even a single drink routinely face openly voiced reproach. Yet fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in infants and children is notoriously difficult to diagnose, and the relationship between alcohol and adverse birth outcomes is riddled with puzzles and paradoxes.

Sociologist Elizabeth M. Armstrong uses fetal alcohol syndrome and the problem of drinking during pregnancy to examine the assumed relationship between somatic and social disorder, the...

In American society, the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy is considered dangerous, irresponsible, and in some cases illegal. Pregnant women who have even a single drink routinely face openly voiced reproach. Yet fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in infants and children is notoriously difficult to diagnose, and the relationship between alcohol and adverse birth outcomes is riddled with puzzles and paradoxes.

Sociologist Elizabeth M. Armstrong uses fetal alcohol syndrome and the problem of drinking during pregnancy to examine the assumed relationship between somatic and social disorder, the ways in which social problems are individualized, and the intertwining of health and morality that characterizes American society. She traces the evolution of medical knowledge about the effects of alcohol on fetal development, from nineteenth-century debates about drinking and heredity to the modern diagnosis of FAS and its kindred syndromes. She argues that issues of race, class, and gender have influenced medical findings about alcohol and reproduction and that these findings have always reflected broader social and moral preoccupations and, in particular, concerns about women's roles and place in society, as well as the fitness of future generations. Medical beliefs about drinking during pregnancy have often ignored the poverty, chaos, and insufficiency of some women's lives—factors that may be more responsible than alcohol for adverse outcomes in babies and children.

Using primary sources and interviews to explore relationships between doctors and patients and women and their unborn children, Armstrong offers a provocative and detailed analysis of how drinking during pregnancy came to be considered a pervasive social problem, despite the uncertainties surrounding the epidemiology and etiology of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Reviews

Reviews

Easy and interesting to read from a historical as well as from a sociological perspective.

In this well-written book, Elizabeth Armstrong provides an in-depth analysis of fetal alcohol syndrome as a social problem.

A welcome and long overdue critique of the knowledge production in the United States surrounding alcohol use by pregnant women and the diagnostic category of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).

Excellent... FAS, because it is seen as preventable, allows society to blame pregnant women who transgress agreed-upon norms rather than seek solutions to the structural problems that lead to adverse birth outcomes and chronic alcohol consumption in the first place.

An interesting and informative exploration of the construction of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) as a major social problem within the US. It combines an historical overview, epidemiological data, and qualitative interviewing to show clearly how moral values affect medical and policy pronouncements.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
296
ISBN
9780801891083
Illustration Description
12 b&w illus.
Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Conceiving Risk
Chapter 2. The "Question of Alcohol and Offspring" in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 3. Diagnosing Moral Disorder
Chapter 4

List of Illustrations and Tables
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Conceiving Risk
Chapter 2. The "Question of Alcohol and Offspring" in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 3. Diagnosing Moral Disorder
Chapter 4. Charting Uncertainty through Doctors' Lenses
Chapter 5. Discordant Depictions of Risk
Chapter 6. Medical-Moral Authority and the Redefinition of Risk in the Twentieth Century
Chapter 7. Bearing Responsibility
Appendix: Data and Methodology for chapter 5 Analyses
Notes
Index

Author Bio
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Elizabeth M. Armstrong

Elizabeth M. Armstrong is an assistant professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.