to think rising levels of neuro diverse children in society is partly due to rising ages of pregnant mothers?

[staydazzling]

im not condeming anything here btw, i would like to make that clear. and i know this may not go down well on here, donning hard hat but whenever theres discussions about how neurological diversity in children has risen ASD, ADHD etc in society, the conversion is often about MMR Ipads or diet, discipline etc which of course all important variables but i feel its unhelpful that a lot of would be mothers are not informed of the risk past 35, of downs syndrome, autism etc, its obviously much better financially to be older and have a family. aibu to feel its the elephant inthe room regarding rising levels of children with ASD, ADHD, Etc??

"I'd say another factor is that people are more mobile and more likely to couple up with similar people so two slightly aspie parents will likely produce a more aspie child."

If there is any actual increase I think this is more likely to be the reason.

Purely anecdotal but every child bar one with asd/adhd that I know, come from younger parents.

Sorry to be that poster but there’s not ‘slightly aspie’ with ASD.

www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/health/fathers-age-is-linked-to-risk-of-autism-and-schizophrenia.html

But the study, published online in the journal Nature, provides support for the argument that the surging rate of autism diagnoses over recent decades is attributable in part to the increasing average age of fathers, which could account for as many as 20 to 30 percent of cases.

The findings also counter the longstanding assumption that the age of the mother is the most important factor in determining the odds of a child having developmental problems. The risk of chromosomal abnormalities, like Down syndrome, increases for older mothers, but when it comes to some complex developmental and psychiatric problems, the lion’s share of the genetic risk originates in the sperm, not the egg, the study found.

Previous studies had strongly suggested as much, including an analysis published in April that found that this risk was higher at age 35 than 25 and crept up with age. The new report quantifies that risk for the first time, calculating how much it accumulates each year.

Cleary it's not the only contributing factor - and many men have in their 50 and 60s have neurotypical children which the article points out - also point out that older fathers can't account alone for the rise in USA.

These finding have been talked about in the general media.

I thought the age of the father was a factor.

And as CrispSandwiches says there is an argument that more parents that are likely on the spectrum are having children. It’s more acceptable/cool to be geeky than it used to be, IYSWIM.

Downs is def age-related and that has been known for 50+ years. My mum was worried I would have it as she had me past 40 in early 70s.
Don’t know about age of parents in other diagnoses but I am sure it is ‘healthier’ to have children younger if poss as sperm and egg do degenerate.
I do believe that ASD is diagnosed much more these days when it wasn’t understood years ago. I knew one autistic person as a child who was lower functioning so it was ‘obvious’. I am sure there were children who today would be diagnosed with ASD and ADHD - the latter were known as ‘hyperactive’.

I'd be interested to see your sources OP- can you post them

Surely its about awareness and diagnosis as well as further acceptance of neuro diversity making parents less adverse to raising concerns. DPs are friends with a CAMHs psychiatrist who has said that if DF were growing up today (now retirement age) he would most certainly have diagnosis of aspergers. However, at the time, him and his parents were advised that he steer his career focus towards engineering or science where he could focus on a project and have less interaction with others if he didnt want to. He was also removed PE following an altercation but there was no discussion of why or integration. Simply an acknowledgment that he 'wasnt the sort' to like interaction.

I have 3 autistics born at 18 23 and 40. Far more likely to be genetic as both their father and I are also autistics.

@AwkwardAsAllGetout

The family resonates with me, too.

I had DS (with ASC and ADHD) in my 20s (then a NT child in my 30s).

I’ve since found out that within my dad’s large family (12 siblings), I have two first cousins with children with ASC and two with children with ADHD.

I suspect my dad has ADHD. He was the ‘problem child’ growing up in the 1950s and was enrolled on the military ASAP as his mother was so worried he was going to end up in prison.

I think I have ADHD, too, and am actually going to pursue an adult diagnosis in 2020.

I think the rise has a lot to do with it being recognised as a.condition , rather than calling children with ASD naughty and bad.

family link

Always a mum’s fault somewhere along the line, isn’t it?
I think you are being over-sensitive. That isn't what the OP is saying at all. It isn't the fault of a mother if a child is born with any disorder/disease. It isn't anyone's fault.

If it is connected in any way with mother's or fathers being older then that may also account for people now being diagnosed later in life. Until the contraceptive pill was introduced (1960s?) the majority of women in the UK produced offspring from age 18 and then often spent the next 20 years or so having more. Obviously their male partners were older too. If you throw in a degree of heredity, then it could be a contributing factor. Be good to have a large study on it.

No. I believe it's the higher level of people in low fat diets with chronically low or unbalanced (low HDL, high LDL, high triglycerides) cholesterol levels and bad gut health which means suboptimal hormone and neurotransmitter production and quality.

Modern western diets are to blame.

I thought studies showed there was a link but a weak one (and it was a stronger link with age of father but not strong enough to be significant).

I think starting threads like this without posting a link to a study that backs it up is a bit pointless

Our modern ability to keep very premature babies alive has more to do with it than older mothers. There were more births per year to women in their 40s in the 1930 and 40s than there are now. The babyboomers had their children historically young.

I'd say another factor is that people are more mobile and more likely to couple up with similar people so two slightly aspie parents will likely produce a more aspie child

This is the truth of it, combined with the fact that most women now work, so a) have greater choice of partner and b) are more likely to reproduce with someone more similar to themselves as they have chosen a similar industry/job

I thought it was older fathers?

Better identification (looking back I can think of a number of kids at school who,were labelled as “naughty”, “slow” or “weird” who were also certainly neurodiverse.

Closing of specialist schools - you notice kids who are neurodiverse a lot more when they are sitting next to yours in literacy.

Less of a stigma - I did maths at Cambridge. I suspect a hell of a lot of people who do maths at Cambridge are neurodiverse but no one I knew was openly neurodiverse which means either they weren’t diagnosed or they were very private about it.

I’ve voted YABU because having researched my family tree, most people carried on having children until they just couldn’t, lots well into their 40s.

The only children I know with any issues all come from younger mothers.

I have postgraduate qualifications in this area and from all of the research I have read (and I read 120 papers per essay I wrote throughout my Masters) - there is no link between maternal age and autism, and most recent research links autism with the fathers DNA and also epigenetics (where the DNA of the foetus is changed slightly by the environment in the womb) which can cause it to emerge.

But the increase is most likely, although not 100%, due to increased knowledge and diagnosis, particularly in the US where medical aid is contingent on having a "diagnosed" condition.

I know several senior people in mental health. I think the starting point is not to group all these conditions/behaviours together.

Autism for example has a strong genetic component.
ADHD doesn't.

There are elephants in the room about the mental health of Millenials, but the age of mothers isn't one of them.

No I think it’s more to do with better awareness and diagnosis. Looking back at my school days (90s) I can now recognise the ‘naughty’ kid probably had adhd and the ‘weird’ kid who was probably was on the spectrum.

I do think that pollution levels are a contributing factor as well.

I'm not a scientist but I had dc1 at 19 and he is autistic.
My dc2 was born when I was 23 and has mild cerebral palsy.

I don't think age has anything to do with it for us.