How can I best support my autistic daughter through pregnancy?

[SmilingNana]

I have recently been told that I'm going to be a Nana by my Autistic 22yr old who is also out of work. I am absolutely over the moon but I am also worried about how I best advise her 🥺

@cookbookjunkie you’re advocating for the genetic manipulation of society to reduce undesirable traits, which you consider are mental illness and learning disabilities. That is very much eugenics.

I will say I had my first baby at 20 so I was very young, and I think the self awareness was part of it but my husband also is really really good at noticing when I’m starting to freak out. He often notices I’m getting overstimulated before me, especially in the early days. I 100% couldn’t have done it without him and there’s no way I would have even considered more children if I didn’t have such a good, well equipped partner.

If it was my daughter and I was in OPs position, what advice I would give would really depend on what the dad was like.

Also sorry for your experience @JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff I think I have some family members who are autistic like my aunt, and my mum basically ended up with my cousin on top of me and my five other siblings because she simply could not cope and my nan was too old to help.

Agreed. Horrific

Its not a horses bolted situation necessarily though is it. Young women have choices, and thats a good thing. Not every pregnancy has to be continued.

Yeah, thanks :)

A lot depends on circumstances, doesn't it?

My mum was/ is excellent and I now realise she did a lot of compensating, like "taking us to the park" when my dad was starting off.

But the thing is, without the ND parent themselves being part of that team effort - you obviously are! - the other parent cannot control for the impact really. My dad "behaved how he behaved" iyswim, and we all had to work around it.

He is a good father to adult kids as he is very intelligent and has a lot of detailed knowledge about random stuff like tax law, cars, all sorts of detailed technical stuff. He also deals with people much better over Zoom/ WhatsApp.

But as a child, I remember him doing things like having this one meltdown when some plastic hairclips I had were on the floor, and he stamped on them till they were reduced to smithereens. I was in reception. I really loved those clips, and I remember feeling so scared and panicked that he would break all my things. My childhood was marked by him just randomly losing control and screaming or destroying things. It leaves big marks on you, to grow up like that.

No, I am advocating for enforced hormonal BC for some categories of vulnerable people with complex issues. Not genetic manipulation, whatever that is.

I am not suggesting we cancel out 'undesirable traits' that I 'consider' to be mental illness. I'm talking about protecting children from the consequences of being born to, and parented by people with actual, diagnosed, severe mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction and in some cases, significant autism or LDs. And no doubt there are a few other things that could go on the list, such as early onset dementia for example.

You are doing what people always do in these situations. Reading the words I wrote and then and replacing them with a bunch of different words with different meanings that I didn't say.

Are you ok to be the main caregiver to this baby?

I agree. Be prepared to be the child’s full- time parent. Do you work, or will you have to give up ? How will this affect your finances? Pension? Plans for the future such as retirement?

You say you want to support your daughter, but this affects the whole family.

This 100% - so irresponsible and selfish to bring a human child into this situation. Young, incapable mother, absent father. Shit show.

Having DC did my autistic DP in. Both DC are autistic, now teens, although it presents differently in them and their dad. He always struggled with anxiety around routines, unpredictability and transitions, but since becoming a parent, he has experienced some very challenging MH problems as a direct result of feeling completely overwhelmed and like he's not coping (he is very conscientious and likes to do things 'right' in every aspect of his life, and finds the flexibility, nuance and relentlessness of parenting entirely outwith his capacity). I wouldn't wish how he has experienced parenthood on my worst enemy, although I now regularly feel so let down by him that our relationship is just limping along, while I try to care for the DC and stop him from constantly spiralling with overwhelm which manifests in intense anxiety, intrusive thoughts and not infrequently, self-harm. Parenthood is, by definition, all the things he cannot cope with as an autistic person: despite being well-meaning, he's trapped in a cycle of good intention, crippling expectation, overwhelm, collapse and self-loathing.

Really, really think this through, OP. Get all services you can involved at the earliest opportunity. You are so used to supporting your DD that you most likely do not even realise the extent to which she relies on you.

I work with children and families: one very basic indicator of childhood wellbeing is a child's sense of absolute certainty that it can rely on and trust its parent to put them and their needs front and centre of their lives, and to have the maturity to, as necessary, subordinate their own wants, wishes and needs to those of their child. Will this be the case with your grandchild?

@cookbookjunkie I also want to protect children from any harm arising from parental capacity and capability issues, whether that’s related to severe mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, physical illness, domestic abuse, poor housing, poverty or criminality for example.
But I can’t agree with you that enforced birth control is the answer. And proposing this to prevent people with these issues reproducing is eugenics, however much you say it isn’t.

Hang on, I am advocating enforced birth control to prevent conception in certain circumstances. I am not calling for the euthanasia of children from dysfunctional families who already exist.

I am sure many do go on to 'bring worth' in spite of chaotic and unhappy upbringings. However it's also true that some very emotionally and psychologically damaged children don't go on to 'bring worth.' They simply go on to perpetuate the damage and the chaos. I don't think there is anything wrong in trying to halt these depressing cycles of dysfunction where we can.

As an argument against enforced birth control, are you seriously asking me to think about the 'right to exist' of some hypothetical children who would never even be conceived? And to evaluate the potential for those theoretical, non-existent children to 'bring worth' to this world? Because that's nuts. I have too much on worrying about the future of children who do get conceived by vulnerable mothers who can't cope with them. I don't have the bandwidth to spare a thought for the ones who never get conceived at all. 😂

Yes, a Facebook page will be a great help at six o clock in the morning when the hungry baby is lying in a dirty nappy because its mother hasn’t got out of bed to change it and feed it because poor personal care doesn’t bother her.

I think there is a huge difference between “enforced” , contraception and someone who needs practical advice on preventing pregnancy because not all forms of contraception will be suitable for them.

In the OPs daughters case she clearly has understanding of social norms, wants to get a job, wants to find accomodation etc so presumably understands that sex leads to pregnancy and what contraception is. However, given that her self care is poor she is unlikely to be able to deal with a form of contraception that needs organisation like the pill, or is potentially messy like condoms, therefore a different approach might be to suggest an implant or a coil.

I don’t know how people would advise someone who was sexually active, but whose understanding of societal norms, of how contraception works and the need to use it to prevent pregnancy was minimal or non existent. Given that a woman’s fertility could easily span thirty years it is a difficult situation.

I have a family member who has had 9 children that she isn’t capable of taking care of. Her father, who is in his 70s, and in poor health, has had to take on 4 of them, and her sister the other 5, in order to keep them out of the care system. These 9 children are all autistic, some of them severely autistic.
Would you want to be doing that in your 70s? No retirement or rest, just fear about what will happen when you’re gone.
You can throw labels like eugenics about, as if you’re morally superior to those who might advocate imposing contraception on the mentally vulnerable, but no one who is actually stuck on the coal face of caring for these children would agree with you. Long acting and irremovable contraception would have prevented a lot of suffering here.

Actually I am very much on the coal face, as you put it. Please don’t accuse me of moral superiority, that isn’t fair.

If someone lacks mental capacity to make decisions around contraception then yes there is an argument for best interests decisions on their behalf, which might include birth control.

OP’s daughter doesn’t sound like she is at the point.

Good luck OP, there is support out there.

You can probably best support her by making a plan together of what would be helpful to adjust to during the pregnancy in prep for her babies arrival and cracking in with that.
Also learning to cook 3-4 simple meals. Discussing coping strategies as well.
I know of one girl online who cut down hear noise cancelling headphones usage as she was aware she needed to increase her tolerance for noise.
And a positive attitude from you and her to the baby.
Could she spend some time with mums and babies. Maybe that would help too

But the conversation has moved into discussing this in a much broader context. It's not just about the OP's DD. Besides, we have no idea of what level of capacity she has. Even someone with excellent mental capacity to understand in theory what is required could still be thoroughly unsuited and incapable of adequate parenting. If their autism was such that they simply couldn't cope with the sensory overload of it all, and the constant disruption to their routines or whatever, it could be an absolute disaster for the wellbeing of the mother and the mother. The OP has only given us the broadest outline on her DD, but it doesn't sound very positive.

Honestly, a termination is the right choice for everyone here.

Op has clearly stated her dd does NOT want a termination so it is not the right choice at all due to that.

If she struggles to get out of bed then motherhood isn't for her unfortunately. As we all know, having a baby is life changing and although a joyous time, it comes with a lot of hard work and sacrifices. Is your daughter up for this challenge!

“. She struggles with upset routine, big crowds, noise,cleanliness, getting out of bed sometimes is problematic. Eating balanced meals, doing things for herself. The list seems endless, it seems she wants everyone to do things for her. ”

From op’s post, do it doesn’t look like she’s up for it.

However, op goes on to say, “She is living me, hubby n sister and I won't see her struggling.”, so she won’t have to worry, as op will do everything.

Well that much is obvious, but it's not going to happen and there is nothing anyone can do about that. If this girl were my daughter I'd be doing everything I could to persuade her to terminate. In fact if she were my daughter she'd have been strongly coerced to have an implant as soon as I realised she was sexually active. But the OP is 'over the moon' so.....

What is there to say except 'very best of luck to all involved who will need it.'

Totally agree. The whole situation is so very depressing as is so much of modern life.

So what is the answer? Oh hang on, let me guess. It'll be something along the lines of more money. More funding for more agencies offering more support and 'education' etc.

Sticking plasters, in other words. Sticking plasters that are only ever partially effective, nothing more than damage limitation exercises with no guarantees of success. An exercise in Forth Bridge painting that does nothing to end certain problems, only to continually patch up the resulting damage at vast expense. We already know we cannot sustain the cost of whatever inadequate support is currently in place. How is throwing more money at a problem ever the answer, when it's simply poured into the same bottomless and ineffective pit? The definition of madness is to keep repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result.