I think my DS's diffcult birth is to blame for some of his problems, but they will never admit it!

[genieinabottle]

DS is 4.8 , he has autism (HF). More than likely genetic cause as we have some nephews and cousins with ASD and ADHD.

But DS also has a speech and language disorder dx.
Expressive and receptive language delay/disorder associated with the ASD no doubt.

But we have found out that his speech disorder is called 'dysarthria', and it is caused by an injury/trauma to the brain's nervous system.
DS also has a defect with one of his pupil which isn't dilating properly. He was seen at 4 months old and 13 months old at the hospital eye clinic for this. We were told he has been born like this and it was physiological.

DS was seen by a cranial ostheopath at 4 months of age, who said the problem with his pupil could indeed be linked to a brain injury. He also comented on the shape of his head which indicated some trauma during the birth.

Here some background about his birth, let me know what you think please.
He was 11 days overdue and i was induced. After a good start, labour was stalling as he wasn't descending. They put me on oxytocyn to get stronger contractions, each time the dose was increased, his heart beat was drastically slowing. This went on for over 6 hours where they were uping the dose then lowering it as he wasn't coping well. He still wasn't descending properly and was stuck in my pelvic bones. Twice they inserted a tube to get blood from his head to check his oxygen levels.
I was in agony feeling his head hiting my back bone for hours.

In the end after 24 hours had passed since the start of labour, they concluded on an emergency c/s (class 2, so urgent but not life treatening), when they opened me up (they cut his cheek in the process!) his large head (36 cm) was literally stuck within my pelvis bones.
They had to prise his head free with the forceps to be able to lift him out!!!
Then they were fussing over his oxygen levels again, took more blood sample from the cord this time. And his apgar scores were only 7 straight after birth. His head was all bleeding on the top left inside, and it was oddly shaped for several months even though he hadn't gone down the birth canal!

I have a growing gut feeling this is linked to his eye and speech problems. But they will never admit to anything.
DS was never given a head scan or any test to check for brain dammage neither.

Maybe i should request one? Will discuss this with his community paed at our next review.
Maybe i'm jumping to conclusions

Sorry for the longggg post.

Thats simlar to dd apart from the fact she hasnt tried a new food for about 2 years now.
She lives on yogurts, porridge ,tin spagetti,mashed sweet potato cheese,whitechoc,and sugar puffs.
Manage to get her to have a smoothie some days.

Im hoping when she can finally talk she will tell me how she feels
DD had reflux for over a year and it would sometimes come out of her nose too.

We are going to try potty training next week but im not looking forward to it as dont know where to start.How have you got on with that?

DS has now been clean day and night for well over a year.
I started when he was 2.8y old and after 8 months of intensive potty training we finally cracked it, he got it. Althought he can still have the odd accident now and then.

The biggest problem was with no.2s, he simply didn't get it and kept going in his pants every single time, and tbh he was not even bothered by it. He could stay in his poo for ages until we noticed or smelled it, he didn't try telling us.
After 8 months of failed potty training i was just about to give up and put him back in nappies when we started getting some success.

Good luck with it. How old is your dd?

Glad you have got that one sorted,that did take a while. I think thats what dd will be like I really dont think she will care if she poos in her pants as she,s never bothered about her nappy being changed.
DD is 4.3 I now its a bit late to be starting but she just never seems ready. Now you have said it took that long I wont give up so easily.
I have 2 other children and potty trained them both at 2.6 and they were dry day and night within a week. That was a while ago now though they are 20 and 13and not SN.
Have you any other children?

Yes same here.
I have an older DS (17) potty trained at 2.5, it took just about two weeks. And DD (2.3) is potty training 3 weeks now, it's going well, now requesting potty but has the odd accident.

When DS2 was potty training we knew about his sppeech and lang, delays and we knew he was a bit different but we didn't know about the asd.
After so many months of trying everything (reward chart, praise, treats, ignoring the 'deed', shouting and naughty step ) to get him to poo in the potty or the toilet or at least tell us when he had soiled himself, i really did lose my rag a few times as i thought he was doing it on purpose.
I felt awful a few months later down the line when we found out about the asd, and paed saying potty training problems especially relating to poos where fairly common with asd.

Good luck with it anyway.

You have a great big gap between your dc too,wasnt expecting that,most people look at me as if I am strange having such a jump between ages. Must admit though dd whos 4 was a bit of a pleasent surprise.
Going back to the birth debate though My dh and I blamed the hospital for all dds problems and the fact I thought I was going to peg it too as they left it to late for c section.
That is until a friend of mine had the perfect pregnancy and birth but has now got a ds with very simlar delays to dd. So im not sure any more if it was that or not.Also I worried if it was my fault as I was quite ill and had lots of antibiotics whilst pregnant I suppose we will never know.

How old was your ds when you got the dx for asd?

Don't blame yourself.
I also had a couple of courses of antibiotics, well i had some for all my pregnancies, and only DS2 has SN.
I'm hoping the doctors wouldn't prescribe these if there weren't safe.

When DS was 2.3 we were told he had speech and language delays. He was only seen by a salt back then.
Then 8 months later the nursery started raising concerns over his lack of interaction, not following simple instructions,..., HV went in to observe and said she would refer for hearing test and to paed. Hearing test came back normal.
Finally when DS was 3.5 he was seen by comm. paed for the fisrt time, after a 1.5 h appointment she gave a verbal dx of 'mild asd'.
A few months later after two reviews, DS was referred to Cahms asd assessment team, and finally dx with autism and speech and language disorder last month at age 4.7.
We're still waiting for the dx report now.

GENIE Thanks for that.
It takes a while to get dx doesnt it.
We are still waiting but I think dd has dyspraxia have been told she has signs of it but too young to dx.Dont think asd but does like to throw things has very bad sleep problems and a food phobia so not sure.
My main concern and expect yours to is the lack of speech espeacialy as she is in nursary now.

Have you got a statement for ds ? We have started ours and it should be completed by sept hopefully.
Must get some sleep now as dd was up 12.30-4.30 last night jumping up and down on our bed and does most nights

It is good that you haven't waited for too long before going down the statemnet route.
We have sent the initial letter for SA. No reply as of yet. DS will be on action +.

I'm quite worried about his speech and language difficulties and i don't know how he will react to school.

I was sort of expecting a dx of asd (atypical), so was a bit shocked when they said autism. But tbh i still think he is mildy affected in many areas. He has however a lot of traits/symptoms.
The area of the triad that causes him the most difficulty is speech and language comprehension and not being able to have a two way conversation. He is also very literal.
He can speak but gets lost in a convo very quickly, changes the subject, talks in circles, still a bit echolalic (although nowhere near as last year).

I think dyspraxia and ASD overlap slighty and in some young children it can be sometimes hard to tell for sure.
I think comm.paed kept us going back for several reviews to give a bit more time to see how things were evolving with DS, before going for the full asd assessmemt.

Good luck with your path to an eventual dx.

Very interesting comments. I actually got hold of my birth notes for my dyspraxic son years afterwards when I found out about shoulder dystocia. Second stage labor was 15 mins with half of that time being the rest of his body, after the head,(the rubbish about the rest is easy after the head was proven to be rubbish in his case) and the midwife saying his shoulder was stuck. She had told me that he was posterior right up until he was born Vertex L.O.L. Grazed ears, black eyes (bruising) and I needed physio and it was painful to sit. He was not a big baby at all. He had 6 lots of cranial osteopathy. (probably can't prove that as his osteopath has died) Initially wouldn't latch on properly and had to learn to suck. Cried a strange warbling high pitched cry most of the time. Later speech problems - not talking at three. He couldn't tell the difference between many sounds. Couldn't make the sounds of words. We had to show him how to hold his teeth, tongue and lips to make the sounds and practice with him repeatedly. Later on Dyslexia diagnosed. There is lots more about his development and behavior. Guess what. His notes were not even written up by the midwife. !5 minutes second stage written in. Nothing about the stuck shoulder (which could have compressed his cord for a short time) Nothing about the posterior labor. No cord test for acidity. No feeding problems written in. A comment made about him taking longer to breath but not indicated by the apgar score. They noted the extra days I stayed there but not about his behavior that necessitated it. I wasn't happy with his being so unsettled. It's cost us an arm and a leg for all his assessments. All the best with your birth notes!