Could autism be caused by lack of sleep?

[sharptoothlemonshark]

I don't mean the disrupted sleep all babies and toddlers put their parents through, I mean serious sleep deprivation at an early age. Or deprivation of one type of sleep.

With everything we now know of the need for adequate sleep for brain development, it makes sense that babies who do not get enough are not going to develop normally neurologically.

And many parents with children who have serious ASD report MASSIVE lack of sleep, well beyond normal

Anybody have any insights into this link? Which way round is the cause and effect? or could it be a vicious circle?

YABU - no, asd cannot be caused by lack of sleep/ my autistic child always slept well etc

YANBU - my autistic child was sleep deprived/ there might be a causal link between lack of sleep and going on to develop ASD

@sharptoothlemonshark I would expect it's the other way round. Parents with an ASD child struggle with sleep deprivation because their child is harder to get to sleep/stay sleeping.

Whether sleep deprived children are more likely to develop autism would depend on a biological pathway causing this and so far one hasn't been found as far as I'm aware, especially because sleep isn't a binary variable . If there is a link, it wouldnt be just sleep as the only causal factor, it's most likely a myriad of factors that make it more likely for a child to develop it.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's environmental/toxicological factors due to all the toxic man made plastics/hormones and other additives now in our everyday materials and food.

Have 2 ASD children - one had colic, never slept and at 19 still paces the house at night, all night. The other, would sleep 23hrs a day if allowed and was always a good sleeper.

Sleep dysregulation is a symptom experienced by some people on the spectrum, but not others.

ie. Lack of sleep in infancy does not cause autism.

Children are born with it, even though it may not be observed fully until infancy or even later. It may be hereditary or due to a multitude of factors that they still haven’t pinpointed.

My autistic 12 year old sleeps very well & always has. Was doing 6 hours a night by 6 weeks, 12 hours by 4/6 months. Plus naps. Will take himself to bed when tired (even at Cub camp, announced mid-activity that he was tired & going to bed, could they please bring him a hot chocolate, which the amazing Cub leader did 😅). My others (NT) sleep equally well & always have.

He also eats particularly well, with fewer than 10 foods he won't eat & he will try absolutely anything. Lots of people do not believe this until they see it, as it doesn't go with their stereotype of autism.

It's almost like he's an individual, with natural, inborn traits & characteristics 😏

"But this wasn't idle musing Op Was
its ableist goady shit stirring bollocks"

Yup.

Just like the selective mutism thread they started last week.

Many autistic people struggle to settle and relax but it is a symptom not a cause.
However many children who do not have autism who sleep poorly can behave badly and have paddies which may cause parents to suspect autism when actually it’s just tiredness.

I have ASD as does DS1, DS2 has ADHD. I slept well as a baby and only started sleeping badly as an older toddler. DS1 was the same. Both of us have issues with going to sleep as we can't 'switch off'. DS2 always slept worse but his issue was wanting Looking back at DS1's babyhood there were other ASD indicators way before the sleep issues. Sleep issues are a symptom not a cause.

I don't like the ASD is a super-power narrative one bit, but I believe our society benefits not suffers by having people whose brains work differently, who can bring other ways of thinking to art, science, technology etc etc I love the way my ASD child's brain works even if some things are harder for them, they don't need bloody curing.

The prevailing view from research is that autism IS genetic (with some research suggesting maternal health might be a contributing factor, not infant sleep), yet you think it's desirable to 'cure' or 'eliminate' autism. Do you think this applies to all genetic disabilities? Because, you know... if you want that the only way to achieve it is to stop people with those heritable conditions having children. Which js, in fact, cough eugenics

Correlation is not causation

As someone with autism, no. You don't just catch autism.

But yes, you can struggle with sleep if you are autistic, or have ADHD.

But this wasn't idle musing Op Was
its ableist goady shit stirring bollocks

This. I’ve reported, it seems to be hit and miss as to whether these threads are deleted by mumsnet but I suggest everyone reports it.

I wonder what causes being an ignorant, goady, offensive arse about ND? Eating strawberries? Not drinking enough milk? Being unhappy and feeling unimportant to people in their real life is my theory.
Maybe I should start a thread, as cases of this ‘condition’ seem to be out of control on mumsnet. 😅

I slept terribly as a child and I am not autistic. Why didn't it zap the autism into me? On the flip side, I have autistic children and the one who slept perfectly fine as a baby is the one showing much more classic autistic traits. The one who slept terribly is autistic, but also adhd, so I presume that you think a whole host of conditions can be caused by lack of sleep? It certainly couldn't possibly be because there is autism in dp's family and these things have a very strong genetic component!

I've reported too. Posts that hint at eugenics should not be allowed.

Have reported aswell don’t believe op has any real experience of autism

My nephew has always slept....at 3 days old he went 11 to 7 diagnosed at 11.

You need to provide a link for your evidence.....and don't spout the defunct MMR theory either.

Have you any medical or scientific training past A level? I guess your trying to write a book, or sell a cure in the future

Here's another thread started by an armchair medical expert, which finds another way to blame parents for their childs autism.
I think sometimes people are subconsciously terrified by the idea that they could have an autistic child or grandchild, that they invent a narrative whereby they can take steps to avoid it.
Or worse, it didn't happen to them so they obviously did things 'correctly' so that's the reason why.
Even the language that these babies could have been 'sleep deprived' suggests they were actively discouraged from sleep at worst, or at best the parents failed to establish a good sleep routine.
Obviously not getting enough sleep does impact how well our brains work, but it can't cause autism!
My boy slept beautifully as a baby. His autism didn't become obvious until he started stimming and had speech delay as a toddler (he's an adult now) I breastfed him. I weaned him at the right age and made all his food myself, using organic produce. I read to him, talked and sang to him, took him to all the baby groups and classes. I was the classic perfect, first time parent.
It really grinds my gears that I had to go through those early years feeling like I had to prove that our son's autism wasn't due to mine and my DHs parenting. It's a hurt that runs deep, even 18 years later. We love our boy and wouldn't change him for the world, but I'd change the world for him if I could. The first thing I'd do is get rid of the shitty attitude that people have about autism.
My heart goes out to every parent with a young autistic child, who is forced to question if they've done something wrong. If it's their fault. It's not. You can't make somebody autistic.

I'm autistic and my superpower is spotting and reporting goady bollocks threads like this one.

I’ve often wondered why with my fraternal twins, one has ASD (between the mild and moderate end of the spectrum) with a mild intellectual disability and the other is NT with a high intellectual ability. We had no ASD in mine and DH’s very large families before DTS2, although DH’s niece was diagnosed a good 10 years later as a young child.

I did read years ago about blood flow to the placenta obviously affecting brain development which may be a cause.

My twin’s placentas were fused together and doctors were confuddled as it looked like only one despite them being fraternal. ASD DS was extremely skinny at birth and looked undernourished (constantly needed feeding as always starving for the first year then he overtook NT DS in weight and height) whereas NT DS was like a sumo wrestler a birth! I’ve always though NT DS definitely got more blood flow than ASD DS.

I’m a vegetarian so blamed myself for a bit thinking I didn’t absorb enough iron to sustain twins, took pregnancy vits but still wouldn’t have absorbed much iron from them. Iron count was never low enough to be prescribed supplements though.

Another thing I read was pregnancies close together depleting nutrition to subsequent pregnancies as I had a stillbirth 2 months before my twins were conceived. Suppose stress and trauma would have had an effect on the body too. Although that doesn’t explain 1st pregnancies resulting in ASD children.

Thyroid function as well. I had symptoms of under active thyroid for years before I was finally given medication. There may be a case for thyroid function testing as a pre-natal check for child bearing age women as there is research that under active thyroid can have an effect on the foetus as needed for brain development. Under active thyroid is apparently more prevalent now as well, more chemicals in environment.

It would be interesting to gather information nationwide from willing mums of ASD children about their pregnancies, diet (any food groups excluded from diet having a correlation), if babies born at lower birthweight etc but that would obviously be very expensive to set up and could be perceived as casting blame I suppose. It would be helpful to exclude possibilities other than genetics though.

This smells a little bit like the MMR causes autism mindset, like needing to find a reason to explain why their child is 'broken', something to blame rather than accept some ppl just are autistic just like I am blonde & have size 7 feet.

Have you any medical or scientific training past A level?

You think OP was capable of getting A levels? I think the only thing OP achieved at school was being the queen of the mean girls committee and being that student remembered by teachers for annoyingly derailing lessons by chatting shit.

Thank you, OP. I am going to take you at your word and assume that you are genuine. Perhaps there is an academic or medical discussion to be had here but it is utterly inappropriate for a parenting forum where most contributors (myself included) are too personally connected to the issue to enable a dispassionate discussion. I am sure there are many other discussion fora out there which would be more appropriate, although they are likely to have higher academic standards of evidence than you have been able to provide on this thread today.

Best wishes to you.

This is the problem with the current rhetoric. There's no middle ground between 'autism is a superpower' and eugenics. Can we not have decent balanced conversation about the possible co-morbidities and correlating factors of autism. All those who say 'autism is a super power' because you have a very high functioning child realise that there are many autistic children with profound disabilities who will never live independently. Some who are doubly incontinent. There are many in care. Do you think all those many children in care simply because their parents weren't able to cope with a severely disabled child, who have never had an attachment to anyone who wasn't paid to look after them, feel it's a superpower? Do you think my friend who is routinely booted, kicked, hit, bit, punched by her child feels it's a superpower? Do you think my daughter who just wants a friend more than anything and has crippling self esteem feels it's a super power?

We can absolutely have a measured discussion about co-morbidities, correlations and confounding variables. Unfortunately, the OP elected to imply direct causality despite having no evidence to support causal relationship or even a hypothesis of mechanistic pathway by which sleep deprivation "causes" autism. She also elected to pick autism specifically, ignoring all the multitude of neurodevelopmental conditions. Why? To stir trouble, I say.

Measured debate is fine when focused on informed facts; if the OP had been putting forward credible, peer-reviewed research I expect people would respond differently.

What the OP has done is thrown out a totally spurious hypothesis based on a total of fuck-all, which is extremely unhelpful with regards to understanding autism better, and is also fairly offensive in its thinking. The OPs suggestions are about as conducive to reasoned debate as me saying has anyone considered being called Kevin makes you more likely to have diabetes because there are lots of diabetic Kevins?