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Lindy Boggs, former Congresswoman and chairperson of the Task Force of Crisis Intervention once remarked, "Alcohol abuse seemed to be connected to and exacerbate, so many problems that American .
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families and their children face" (Boggs). Children of alcoholics are important to observe and study because they are, in most cases, the innocent victims of parental alcohol abuse. Sara Markowitz and Michael Grossman articulate the importance of parental alcohol abuse by stating, "Alcohol use and abuse is an important research topic because of the significant costs alcohol abuse imposes on individual users, their families, and society as a whole" (309). One of the largest dangers of being a child of an alcoholic occurs at conception, being an alcoholic during pregnancy can lead to spontaneous abortion, still birth and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (Windel 30). The latter is a term that refers to birth defects common to children whose mothers were chronic alcoholics who drank heavily throughout pregnancy (Windel 29). Some of the abnormalities of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome are growth retardation, central nervous system deficits, developmental delay, brain malformations, and characteristic facial features. The effects of being born to an alcoholic mother have a devastating effect on both the child and the family as a whole. Families that deal with miscarriages and still births are faced with emotional distress which could include: "sadness, frustration, disappointment and anger" (Knox and Schacht 341). This may worsen the condition of the alcoholic mother because she might "blame" herself for the death of her child (Knox and Schacht 341).
Dealing with such problems as hyperactivity and developmental delay create extra stress on the parents of the children (Knox and Schacht 332). Even in children that do not suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, there are other detriments associated to being in a family with a history of alcoholism.