A question to parents of Autistic Children

As many parents are, my wife and I have always had a fear of having an Autistic child. I was poking around on the forums and found an article where I believe the case was being made that a very "possible" link to Autism could be induction. My wife and I currently have had four children, all vaginally but all induced. Only one was done early because the Doctor was going to be on vacation and even then was only early by 7 days. My oldest was I think two weeks late and my last two were all over but by just a few days. Basically my off spring like to hang out in mums tummy so we have to evict them.

Anyhow, I was wondering if any parents of Autistic children could comment regarding the article on bellybelly (see below link) and how induction relates/related to your autistic child's birth?

http://forums.bellybelly.com.au/foru...ian-study.html

Thank you

Just a quick note, it is more acceptable if you say 'a child with autism' rather than 'an autistic child'. There are many components to a child and a diagnosis of autism is just one of them.

cheers,

k

ETA- i noticed the article also uses 'autistic children', so understand if that's where you got the term from. I;m just trying to spread awareness of putting the person/child first followed by their disability/medical condition/variation/extra factor.

Do any of your children show signs of spectrum traits at all? Do they have behaviouraly issues that are present with children who have autism? Im just wondering as your post obviously shows concern about your childrens birth's

Autism is not something that is caught later in life...its always present, its just to what degree and are we as parents blinded to it in baises to our children.

As for austim and induction.....hmmm :think: my child was born 1 week prior to EDD and via an uncomplicated c/s. I knew something wasnt right from in utereo but could never put my finger on it. There is actually a section on BB about autism and 2 of us BB memebers have starting journalling our lives with our children who are on the spectrum. If you click on 'mario' in my signature it will take you to mine.

As humans we have to always find a purpose and meaning to why things like this happen. Sometimes we need to just except that they do, stop dwelling on the what if's and concentrate on the how to deal with them. We cant help our children with we dont look forward

I'm only new to the idea of parenting a super kid. But personally, I don't care how its termed, autistic, child with autism... etc etc... Matilda might care as she gets older, some do (when reading the Autism forums), but personally I don't care.

I choose to use the term "on the autistic spectrum" with Matilda. If someone asks me what is going on, I say "Matilda has Asperger's which is on the Autistic Spectrum" so people can understand a few different things. One that it is a spectrum :) not a definate thing, one child with autism is completely different from another, they just have similar traits. Two, that Matilda isn't Autistic. It is not who she is, its what she has ;)....

Matilda was an induced labour, but I'm not entirely sure if that was the cause. Asperger's runs in my husbands side of the family (as we've discovered in the past few years). There are an awful lot of genetic markers. Its a neurobiological disease, so its not something you can prevent, whereas you can prevent an induction.... kwim?

Just moving this to special needs :)

I think my little fella is danging of the edge of the spectrum, the research and anecdotal evidence I have found thus far indicates strong family/genetic factors (often undiagnosed until the child is) to be the main element.
I'm not sure how a 'one off' event could make those changes/differences to a brain iykwim?

Cos we live in a world where people think they can control everything, and if you have all the tests and follow the dr you will be all ok. And for many people, this works and therefore they can attribute this to having the right scans and eating the right things and having/not having induction/vag birth/c section/immunisation/not immunisation/breast/formula feeding with extra vitamin x.......

You can't control everything. Sometimes stuff just happens. It is the way you deal with the 'stuff' that influences how your life will live.

Why live in fear before the stuff happens, because it might not be as bad if it ever does happen to you.

I do not currently (that I know of) have a child with autism, perhaps thats why I used the term I did. I am also in the U.S., again perhaps thats why I used the term I did and perhaps because of the term being in much of the media. Personally I do not see the difference, but again thats probably because I am not living with autism. So I do apologize to any one who might have been offended. That said I am hopeful that this thread will not turn into a discussion of terminology as that was never my intent.

As I stated, I do not currently have any children that have been diagnosed nor am I thinking I need a diagnosis yet. I do however have a 1 year old although I do not think he is really showing any signs. If any of my children have a variation of autism it would be my 3 year old little boy but I do not foresee it preventing him from having a normal, interacting social life.

My question was centered more around having more children, being older and having more children, knowing others who have children with autism, and just the curiosity from that article. My wife's body just will not deliver naturally from start to finish. So being older is a concern in and of itself and if there is a link to inductions naturally it would be something to think about. Perhaps my curiosity is just that it is a fascinating thought - inductions having a link to autism. There is much controversy and many view points but nothing that is rock solid that I have ever seen or heard of. So again it was all of the above that caused me to ask the question. Kind of my own sudo-scientific research if you will. Who better to ask than those who have children with autism.

Anyhow, I apologize if I upset or irritated anyone with my terminology. I am still curious if inductions were involved with any one who today has a child with autism. Like Kate and Maz said, some times things just happen. Maybe thats the case with autism and maybe not but the truth is every time we decide to bring a new life into our family's we are rolling the dice to a certain degree - maybe a big degree.

Ah no one is offended here :) its great that someone is showing an interest in autism full stop.

I really dont think it matters what type of delivery one has in regards to autism. I have a few friends with children with autism and we have all delivered differently..so induction, age and state of mother really is nothing to say the least. Many people I know worry more about the MMR needles given at the 12 month mark here in Australia...I to was one and waited for months after the actual due date of these....Mateauz is 18 months old and has only jsut recieved them now.

Unless you have a family history or other children with autism I wouldnt really worry in length about it. I agree with the others...its more to do with genetics then birth situations because if that was the case I would have 2 autistic children...instead I have one and a child that suffers from cerabal palsey

My ASD child was born on his EDD. Labour was spontaneous and only quickened up with ARM at 4-5cm, so no induction.

I believe there are undiagnosed adults in our extended family who are on the spectrum also.


HTH :)

I'm not offended either :) I too think its good that someone takes an interest in Autism.

I do understand the fear of it now.... totally. But remember, Autism is a spectrum. There are varying degrees of it, and not everyone is low functioning, or has a hard time communicating. Heck, most of Silicon Valley is ASD.... seriously, its a majority there and its considered "normal". Bill Gates is Autistic. Its not the end of the world to have the diagnosis ;)

my son was born 10 days overdue and was a 7 hr labour

i dont think its caused by what ever its caused by and with reasearch we will find out why one day

Wow, interesting article. I haven't read it before and honestly my brain is kind of fuddled at the moment and I skipped over a lot of it but here is my 2 c worth.

My son has autism - Aspergers. My SIL has 2 children on the spectrum and we are guessing that my other SIL may have one as well. Just after my DS was diagnoised my SIL rang me about a study linking pre-eclampsia with autism as we both had pre-eclampsia. I have also read the ones about vaccinations and quite and recently there was a report that they have found 4 genes that 'may contribute' to autism.

Our story is that we were induced with syntocin after rapid onset of pre-eclampsia. I remember vividly the horrible moment when they broke my waters and I could feel my DS start to panic. He was born 5 hrs later (only 2 on syntocin as I ripped out my drip and the midwives agreed to see how I went on my own) and he also got stuck under my hip bone and I pushed for 2 hrs - so I guess as births go it wasn't untraumatic.

Having said that I believe that DS had issues before he was born. in utero his movements were extremely forceful. He responded to loud noises and bass music very strongly - after one movie I was left very bruised and extremely sore.

I guess you can also look at it from the other point of view, knowing that labour stems from contributuions from mother and baby - perhaps it's not that inducement causes autism, rather that children with autism require interventions in their birth???

Also I think the difficulty with autism is that it is so different. Some people aren't diagnoised until they are 8-9 yrs old. Many parents see big changes around 1 or 4 yrs old and believe this is when they're child autism starts. Hard to define a study when each family perceives it so differently