| Description |
xiii, 277 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Conceiving risk -- The "question of alcohol and offspring" in the nineteenth century -- Diagnosing moral disorder -- Charting uncertainty through doctors' lenses -- Discordant depictions of risk -- Medical-moral authority and the redefinition of risk in the twentieth century -- Bearing responsibility |
| Summary |
"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. Armstrong 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 place in society as well as the fitness of future generations." "Using primary sources and interviews to explore relationships between doctors and patients, on the one hand, and women and their unborn children, on the other, 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."--BOOK JACKET |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]-265) and index |
| Subject |
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders -- Social aspects -- United States.
|
|
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders -- United States -- History.
|
| LC no. |
2002152399 |
| ISBN |
0801873452 hardback alkaline paper |
|
