Finalist, C. Wright Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social
Problems
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.
"Armstrong draws attention to some important questions about our
perceptions of responsibility for alcohol-related harm sustained
during pregnancy... I hope that her book will lead to a healthy
debate and a more objective ethical, medical, and scientific
approach to this field in the future." -- Addiction
"There is much to admire in Armstrong's account: her clever
deconstruction of the advocates' invented history of FAS, her
sure-handed discussion of the politics of reproduction, and her
often fascinating interview material." -- Perspectives in Biology
and Medicine
"In this well-written book, Armstrong provides an in-depth
analysis of fetal alcohol syndrome as a social problem." --
AmericanJournal of Sociology
"A well-researched, highly readable, and convincing example of
the ways in which modern medicine continues to create myths,
stigmatize the poor, and pathologize gender." -- Social History of
Medicine
Elizabeth M. Armstrong is an associate professor of sociology
and public affairs at Princeton University.
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