Establishment of the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority Resource Center for Children with Prenatal Alcohol/Drug Exposure

Abstract

This paper presents a new initiative in the South-Eastern Health Region of Norway to establish a regional resource center focusing on services for children and adolescents aged 2–18 years with prenatal exposure to alcohol or other drugs. In Norway, the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum (FAS) is not known but has been estimated to be between 1 and 2 children per 1000 births, while the prevalence of prenatal exposure to illicit drugs is unknown. The resource center is the first of its kind in Scandinavia and will have three main objectives: (1) provide hospital staff, community health and child welfare personnel, and special educators with information, educational courses, and seminars focused on the identification, diagnosis, and treatment of children with a history of prenatal alcohol/drug exposure; (2) provide specialized health services, such as diagnostic services and intervention planning, for children referred from hospitals in the South-Eastern Health Region of Norway; and (3) initiate multicenter studies focusing on the diagnostic process and evaluation of interventions.

Establishing a multidisciplinary specialist centre for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders—Lessons learned from a model project in Germany

“…To the best of our knowledge, also at European level, there are few highly experienced nationwide FASD coordination and care centres. One example of another interdisciplinary specialised FASD centre comes from Norway, where such a service was established in 2015 (Løhaugen et al, 2015). Nevertheless, as a recent commentary from experts in the field concluded, a lot of work is still to do to enhance diagnostic and care services for individuals with FASD (Popova et al, 2020).…”

Phosphatidylethanol as Blood Biomarker of Alcohol Consumption in Early Pregnancy: An Observational Study in 4,067 Pregnant Women

“…Our study had 14 positive cases per 1,000 births, which would have resulted in approximately 770 children vulnerable for FAS or FASD at a national level, given the Norwegian birth rate of 55,000 annually (Statistics Norway, 2019). The estimated number of children with FAS born annually in Norway is 60 to 120 (Løhaugen et al, 2015). If we assume that the ratio of FAS to FASD is 1 to 10, our results are in line with previous assumptions (Chudley, 2008; Popova et al, 2017).…”

“…In addition, lack of appropriate screening methods and diagnostic possibilities makes prevalence calculations challenging (May et al, 2009). The incidence of FAS in Norway has been estimated to be 1 to 2 children per 1,000 births (Løhaugen et al, 2015), but no exact frequency of the more invisible FASD diagnosis was provided. In general, it has been suggested that the rate of FAS to FASD is 1 to 9 or 1 to 10 ( Popova et al, 2017).…”

Harm to Others from Substance use and Abuse

“…Løhaugen and colleagues describe an initiative to establish a regional resource center providing services for children and adolescents 2-18 years old who have been prenatally exposed to alcohol or other substances. 23 The resource center is the first of its kind in Scandinavia. The center will provide information, education, and seminars to health-care and child welfare personnel and special educators regarding identification, diagnosis, and treatment of children prenatally exposed to alcohol and/or other substances.…”