Blog #5

For my argument of fact paper I will provide several misconceptions of my topic, such as other effects due to alcohol abuse during pregnancy besides fetal alcohol syndrome. Also the effects of drugs like narcotics, hallucinogens, stimulants, and depressants. I will be giving information about my topic that is already known but put a much larger emphasis on the effects drug and alcohol abuse have on the fetus and how important it is to provide awareness across the world on this issue. Many people may think that there is a safe level of drinking alcohol or that only certain types of drugs are harmful to the fetus, when in reality there is information that is not known worldwide. My hypothesis is that knowing close to all the effects of drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy will provide awareness and reduce such abuse during pregnancy. I will be using statistics found by studies based on previous cases of drug an alcohol abuse to show my audience the effects.

Blog #4

It is obvious that alcohol and drug consumption is dangerous, especially while being pregnant. From the three articles I found I learned a couple of effects that the fetus may encounter due to alcohol and drug abuse, such as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Fetal alcohol syndrome is a condition that results from exposure to alcohol during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is a range of various deformities or impairments due to alcohol exposure to which fetal alcohol syndrome falls under. The first article I read gave me plenty of information on several drugs and alcohol that were most likely consumed by women and if the use had increased or decreased over a 10 year period. The second article provided other effects that alcohol has on pregnancy such as stillbirth, spontaneous abortion, miscarriage and infant death syndrome. And the third article explained that symptoms of depression and anxiety could lead women to consume alcohol while pregnant. These articles gave me a good overview of the effects of alcohol abuse during pregnancy but not much over drug abuse. I still have some question unanswered over my topic, for instance how does the fetus react to these harmful products consumed by the mother, what kinds of side effects do drugs like narcotics or hallucinogens cause?   

Blog #3

While looking for sources it is important to use key words associated with my topic. Using the word pregnancy does not really help because it is too broad and does not go into depth with my topic which is the effects of drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy. During our library session the instructor suggested I use the specific database named Sage because it covers subjects that have to do with health sciences, such as mine. Along with the Sage database I tried Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition which was very helpful and gave me various articles on pregnancy and alcohol abuse. I clicked on a few articles and just read the abstract to get a gist of the article and whether it would be a useful source for my research project. On one of the articles I clicked on it talked about the ages when alcohol abuse is likely to happen ranging from teenagers to women around their thirties. Another article explains that alcohol abuse during pregnancy is likely to be associated with women whom have symptoms of depression. I learned from the couple of sources I sorted through that there may be certain causes leading women to drug and/or alcohol abuse during pregnancy and that there are several effects to the women and embryo or fetus.