According to Kathryn Krost and Stanley Henshaw in their article U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2008: State Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity the United States alone has a teen pregnancy rate of 3 in every 10 teenage girls. Krost and Henshaw state how this means that 30% of teenage girls will get pregnant at least once before the age of twenty, which equates to about 750,000 teenage pregnancies every year. A study performed at the University of Texas at Austin shows that over the past twelve months about 3 in 5 pregnant teens have used one or more substances, which is a percentage that is nearly double that of nonpregnant teens. This sample included nearly 100,000 young girls from the ages of twelve to seventeen.
While pregnant, if a woman who is pregnant and she consumes alcohol then she is putting her child more at risk than she is putting herself at risk. According to Mayo Clinic if alcohol is consumed during pregnancy the alcohol first goes into the bloodstream and comes into contact with the fetus by crossing through the placenta. The alcohol also causes the fetus to have a higher blood alcohol level due to the fact that they are unable to metabolize the alcohol as fast as an adult body can. It interferes with the baby receiving oxygen and
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There are multiple facial features that will occur when a child has FAS, however these symptoms will vary from child to child and depend on the severity of the condition. Children who suffer from FAS may have an extremely thin upper lip, smooth skin between the upper lip and the nose, a small, upturned nose, and small eyes. Other deformities can include slow physical growth after birth, vision and hearing struggles, deformities of the joints, limbs and fingers, have a small head and small brain size, heart defects, skeletal issues, and digestive