There is no safe amount of alcohol a woman can drink while pregnant. Alcohol can cause lifelong physical and behavioral problems in children, including fetal alcohol syndrome. FAS is a serious illness in which babies may be born with a mental illness and have a deformity mainly in the face. When you drink alcohol during pregnancy, so does your baby, because alcohol passes freely through the placenta to your baby. If you choose to drink alcohol while you are pregnant, you will increase the risk that your baby will be born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Fetal alcohol syndrome is a condition in a child that results from exposure to alcohol during the mother's pregnancy. Fetal alcohol syndrome causes brain damage and growth problems. The problems caused by fetal alcohol syndrome vary from child to child, but the abnormalities caused by fetal alcohol syndrome are