Noted black psychiatrist calls fetal alcohol exposure a crisis

Dr. Carl C. Bell is on a mission.

Bell, a distinguished psychiatrist who has treated patients, primarily in the African-American community, serves as a staff psychiatrist at Jackson Park Hospital’s surgical-medical/psychiatric inpatient unit.

Despite his professional titles (he is clinical professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago), Bell has been an integral part of the black activist community.

And even though he’s come a long way from streets once controlled by the Blackstone Rangers, Bell keeps it real.

“As anyone who has been following my prevention efforts knows, four out of 10 patients at Jackson Park Hospital on Chicago’s South Side who presented to their family medicine clinic for psychiatric care have clinical profiles that are consistent with neurobehavioral disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposures,” Bell wrote in a recent commentary.

“I have been heartened that there is some sound science to suggest that perinatal choline supplementation could help. That reality, along with the American Medical Association’s resolution to support evidence-based amounts of choline in all prenatal vitamins, spurred the University of Illinois at Chicago to do something,” he said.

What is choline and why has this become a critical issue for black America?

Third World Press, one of the oldest black publishing companies in the country, recently released Bell’s research in the form of a book, “Fetal Alcohol Exposure in the African American Community.”

“Choline is an essential nutrient for the brain to develop properly. If there is not enough choline there will be birth defects in the body’s midline structures. This is especially important information during pregnancy because alcohol destroys choline in the body,” Bell says.

“A deficiency in choline from Fetal Alcohol Exposure is also associated with prematurity, low birth weight, and smaller brain sizes and intellectual disability,” Bell wrote.

The book is 138 pages; Bell is practically pleading with black folks to read it.

“The reason I hope you ‘get it’ is because I am getting old. This may be my last crusade for African-Americans. I am tired. I have tried to groom my replacements, and I have trained as many as I could to take my place, but some have just not wanted to work as hard as I have worked to dig out information that is real and factual,” Bell writes in the book’s conclusion.

“Fetal Alcohol Exposure is a huge problem for African-Americans. I am convinced it is a major cause of the prematurity, mild intellectual disability, special education, juvenile justice involvement, unemployment, homelessness, psychiatric illness, homicide and suicide in African-Americans,” Bell concluded.

I spoke to Bell by phone late last week.

“If you look at what [alcohol] has done to Native Americans; if you go to South Africa or Australia, it is the same thing. It is not only an issue of cultural, social and psychological warfare, it is also biological warfare against people of color, and it has been like that for quite a while,” Bell told me.

“I have uncovered it in the African-American community. The only thing thriving in Native American and in African-American communities are liquor stores,” he said.

“The problem is that black women don’t know they are pregnant for about four to six weeks,” the doctor pointed out.

“They might drink socially during those four to six weeks and they stop when they find out they are pregnant. But the problem is the brain damage is already done.”

Choline is a fix, according to Bell.

“The baby’s brain needs choline to develop properly, and one of the potential fixes — which is now a real fix — is to increase the amount of choline that women get when they are pregnant. There are now three studies — one out of the University of Colorado, one out of Emory University and one that was done in South Africa — that show if you give pregnant women prenatal choline, that their babies’ brains come out much more intact. It is a matter of time before this spreads like Omega 3,” he said.

Choline is available as a dietary supplement, and Bell suggests women go online to learn more about the essential nutrient.

“You could easily eat two egg yolks a day if you are pregnant; that would do it,” he said.

As the late poet Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, do better.”

Bell just dropped some much-needed knowledge. Consider it a Christmas present.