Drinking during pregnancy has come to be considered a pervasive social problem, despite the uncertainties surrounding
the epidemiology and etiology of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).
Sociologist Elizabeth M. Armstrong 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 � in particular,
concerns about a woman's role and place in society. 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.