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Tribe finds moms, informs about fetal alcohol dangers
A new program on the Tohono O'odham Nation helps pregnant women to stop drinking.
In April, Indian Health Services started a fetal alcohol syndrome prevention program, and all women who get prenatal care at Sells, San Xavier or Santa Rosa are screened for possible alcohol and drug use.
They are are given information on FAS as well.
"We're identifying women that drink or drug in pregnancy and are attempting to intervene," said Debbie Thomas, program coordinator and a former public health nurse.
Women are responding to the services, thanks to three Native American alcohol counselors, Thomas said.
"Women are more open about their drinking with them then they are with doctors," Thomas said. "Their credibility is 100 percent."
Thomas knows there is much work to be done in preventing FAS on the reservation. She believes at least 1 in 4 women on the reservation drinks during pregnancy.
"It's overwhelming how far we have to go and what needs to be done," Thomas said. "This is a baby step, and that's fine. You can't change the whole world, only a piece of it. But we really are raising awareness."
Thomas works with Dr. Terry Cullen, clinical director of the Sells Hospital, to help women deliver the healthiest babies possible.
Cullen said there was an understanding that FAS was a problem on the Tohono O'odham Nation. But the extent of the problem was unknown.
So every weekend for a year and a half, Thomas reviewed the charts of women who had given birth, pulling files of women suspected of abusing alcohol.
"If someone was in the ER five times last year for alcohol-related incidents, we knew there might be a problem," Thomas said.
Initially, 1,000 charts were pulled for further investigation. Of those, 26 percent of the mothers had died.
The tribe will not disclose how many cases of FAS are now suspected.
Work began on tracking the children in the 1,000 cases, to determine if they had FAS, Thomas said.
And they track women who are pregnant again.
"When we find a woman at risk, we do home visits, and give them information on FAS," Thomas said.
Those considered at highest risk are older, alcoholic women and women who have already given birth to an FAS baby.
Thomas said none of the mothers who drink wants to hurt her baby.
"All these women and all these men want healthy babies," she said. "They all love their babies.
"But it's a disease. They all say, 'I know I need to stop, but I can't.' They don't know how to get help."
The women who appear to be at risk are tracked throughout their pregnancies, and help is made available to them.
The program is too new to determine whether the rate of FAS is decreasing.
But Cullen said there is a "heightened awareness on the part of Indian Health Services and the tribe of the ravages of FAS."
And women are getting more information on what alcohol does to a growing baby.
"Our goal is to keep these women sober for the duration of their pregnancies," Thomas said. "What you want is lifelong sobriety. But we have smaller, intermediate goals."
Cullen and Thomas said awareness of FAS is greater on the reservation than in the rest of society.
"There's a huge awareness with most teachers (on the reservation) that FAS is an issue," Cullen said. "Kids get tested and identified quicker on the reservation than any other place."
And they said across the nation, there is a push for sobriety on reservations.
Cullen and Thomas hope the program is a step toward ending alcoholism.
"Alcoholism is a family disease," Cullen said. "It's a multigenerational disease.
"If you can identify a woman drinking in pregnancy and help her stop drinking, you can stop the cycle."
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