Children have a right to be protected from predictable and preventable harms. This is a value people hold in common across every culture and every country, and it is a promise every society makes to its youngest members. How well we keep that promise is one of the truest measures of whether our governments deliver for the people they serve.
The massive, extensive, and still under-recognised burden of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder reveals how far societies still fall short of protecting people from alcohol harms.”
Kristina Sperkova
The massive, extensive, and still under-recognised burden of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder reveals how far societies still fall short of protecting people from alcohol harms. FASD is the most common preventable cause of neurodevelopmental impairment among children worldwide. An estimated 11 million children and adolescents, and 25 million people under the age of 40, live with FASD. In 76 countries the prevalence exceeds one in every hundred children, and it is highest among children in out-of-home care and people caught up in justice and mental health systems.
Yet the true burden is far larger than these numbers show, because most countries lack the systems to detect, diagnose, monitor, and help affected people and families. Children with FASD and their families are too often left invisible and alone: without recognition, without support, and without the political attention their situation requires.
FASD shows that population-level alcohol consumption a societal and human rights issue, and one that needs governmental attention. Protecting children from predictable harms, such as FASD, is the responsibility of governments.”
Kristina Sperkova
FASD is one of the clearest examples of the massive social dimension of alcohol harm. The harm is predictable. The links between alcohol use before conception, including by the father, alcohol exposure during pregnancy, and alcohol exposure while breastfeeding, and the damage done to the unborn child and to early childhood development, are established by science. And this harm flows from population-level alcohol consumption: FASD is the consequence of widely available alcohol and of societal acceptance of its widespread use. The volume and patterns of alcohol use by people of reproductive age is shaped by how available, how affordable, and how heavily promoted alcohol is in their society.
FASD shows that population-level alcohol consumption a societal and human rights issue, and one that needs governmental attention. Protecting children from predictable harms, such as FASD, is the responsibility of governments.
Governments hold powerful, proven, and promising tools to protect children from this predictable harm. Alcohol policy solutions are effective. Raising alcohol taxes, introducing common sense limits on alcohol availability, and protecting people from alcohol advertising helps lower population-level alcohol use and prevent heavy alcohol use across the whole population, including among those planning or expecting a child, and therefore they help prevent and reduce FASD. Clear health information, including pregnancy warning labels on alcohol products, gives people the knowledge they need to recognise the risks and harms inherent in alcohol consumption. These measures work, they are affordable, and they protect the children who cannot protect themselves.
This is why the conduct of the alcohol industry is so deeply concerning and extremely revealing. Their greed even makes them block and derail progress towards protecting those most at risk, unborn and newborn children. Big Alcohol causes doubt, funding websites and campaigns that omit and misrepresent the risks of alcohol use in pregnancy, with research now showing that this messaging succeeds in making people less certain about alcohol harms, such as risks of cancer and foetal alcohol syndrome. Alcohol companies and their front groups derail proven alcohol policy measures: for instance, government documents released in New Zealand in 2025 revealed that alcohol lobbyists dismissed credible estimates of babies born with FASD, attacked a successful prevention campaign, and were handed draft alcohol strategies the public was not allowed to see, after which reforms were paused.
This is why the conduct of the alcohol industry is so deeply concerning and extremely revealing. Their greed even makes them block and derail progress towards protecting those most at risk, unborn and newborn children.
Kristina Sperkova
An industry that fights protections for unborn children has shown us exactly what it values.”
The alcohol industry delays the implementation of warning labels, as it did for decades in Australia, New Zealand, and France. And it promotes alcohol use during pregnancy by nudging women toward continuing to consume alcohol.
An industry that fights protections for unborn children has shown us exactly what it values. It has disqualified itself from any role in shaping alcohol policy, and governments that open their doors to it are failing the children they are meant to protect.
On this FASD Awareness Day, we in Movendi International call on governments everywhere to use the tools they already hold: to implement the alcohol policy best buys, starting with higher alcohol taxes; to introduce mandatory pregnancy warning labels; to establish national centres of FASD expertise for prevention, diagnosis, and support; to shield alcohol policy making from alcohol industry interference; and to give children living with FASD and their families the recognition and care they deserve.
When we make the invisible problem visible and act on it through alcohol policy action, we keep the promise that every society makes to its children: that they have a right to be protected from predictable and preventable harms, and that we will prioritise children’s well-being and development.
