FASD can occur anytime a pregnant woman drinks alcohol. Research has shown over and over that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Even a single binge-drinking episode (having four or more drinks on one occasion) has been associated with increased risk for learning disabilities in a newborn.

The biology is simple. When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, it passes directly from her blood-stream to the placenta of the growing baby. When a pregnant woman drinks, her baby drinks too.

Prevention is 100 percent effective but sometimes difficult to implement:

• If you are pregnant, don’t drink alcohol.
• If you drink alcohol and can’t stop, don’t get pregnant.
• If you're pregnant and can’t stop drinking, get help.

I’m not suggesting that we need marathons, t-shirts and wristbands to reinforce these points. We need something far more basic – the facts. They need to be stated clearly and consistently, over and over again in the same way we work to reduce and eliminate other preventable conditions.