Meconium Screening to Detect Heavy Fetal Alcohol Exposure
Channel: Children's Healthcare Canada
Date: 2013-03-01

Exposure to alcohol in the womb can adversely affect brain development.  Evidence of prenatal ethanol exposure is an important key to identifying children at risk for FASD.  Meconium testing for metabolites of alcohol has emerged as a powerful objective tool for screening.  This webinar will present the results of a province-wide study which examined the feasibility and acceptability of meconium screening and the prevalence of heavy fetal alcohol exposure among newborns and the first national-wide prevalence study currently underway in Canada.


Presenters

Gideon Koren, Paediatrician, Hospital For Sick Children, Director, Motherisk Program, Professor of Paediatrics, Pharmacology, and Medicine, University of Toronto

Dr. Koren is the founder and director of the Motherisk Program and a professor of Pediatrics, pharmacology, pharmacy and medicine. He is a staff pediatrician at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and the author/co-author of hundreds of scientific articles, book chapters and abstracts. He is a member of numerous professional societies. In 1999 he received the Irving Sunshine Award (awarded by the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring & Clinical Toxicology), and in 1997 he received the prestigious Rawls-Palmer Award. Both awards were for outstanding contributions to clinical toxicology. In March 2000 Dr. Koren received the Medical Research Council of Canada's Senior Scientist award for his work in Population Health Sciences, and in September 2003 he was awarded the Pippenger Award for outstanding achievement by the International Association for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology. Dr. Koren is founder of the FACE (Fetal Alcohol Canadian Expertise) Network and the peer reviewed Journal of FAS International. In 2004 Dr. Koren was appointed as the Ivey Chair in Molecular Toxicology at the University of Western Ontario. He is creating a Canadian Network of Human Toxicology.

Joey Gareri, M.Sc., Manager, Motherisk Laboratory, Hospital for Sick Children

Mr. Garieri manages the Motherisk Laboratory in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology at the Hospital for Sick Children.  In addition to overseeing the laboratory's clinical work, he is involved in conducting and directing research involving biomarker development of in utero substance exposure.  Mr. Garieri has a special interest in biomarkers of prenatal alcohol exposure, with the ultimate goal of early detection and intervention of individuals at risk for FASD.  He has presented his research involving toxicological analysis of newborns, children, and adults through numerous peer-reviewed publications and scientific meetings world-wide and is in the process of obtaining his PhD through the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Toronto.

Janet Bryanton, UPEI School of Nursing

Janet Bryanton is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Master's program at the UPEI School of Nursing. She teaches Nursing Research and Nursing of Childbearing Families in the undergraduate program and Quantitative Research at the graduate level. Her research program focuses on perinatal health promotion including women's perceptions of their birth experience, early parenting and parenting self-efficacy, breastfeeding, FASD prevention, and family-centred care.

Kaitlyn Delano, PhD (candidate)

Kaitlyn Delano is a PhD candidate in pharmacology at the University of Toronto and is a research assistant at the Motherisk program at the Hospital for Sick Children.