Adopted, Foster Kids More Likely to Have Fetal Alcohol Disorders. By Holly Lebowitz Rossi. parents.com. September 10, 2013.Children who are adopted or who are in the foster care system have a heightened rate of fetal alcohol syndrome and other emotional and physical conditions that are associated with prenatal exposure to alcohol, according to a new review of more than 30 studies conducted in America and Russia.  

More from Reuters:Among those children, researchers found that rates of alcohol-related problems – which can include deformities, mental retardation and learning disabilities – were anywhere from nine to 60 times higher than in the general population.
“It’s increasingly well recognized that this is a very high-risk population and one that we should really be paying attention to,” Phil Fisher, a psychologist who studies foster and adopted children at the University of Oregon in Eugene, said.“We know that one of the main reasons that kids end up in foster care or being made eligible for adoption is because their parents have substance abuse problems,” added Fisher, who wasn’t involved in the new research.
Journal reference: Prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in Child Care Settings: A Meta-analysis.Lange S, Shield K, Rehm J, Popova S.Pediatrics. 2013 Sep 9.(doi: 10.1542/peds.2013-0066)