Anyone REALLY knoweldgable about feminism that cares to discuss it's role wrt ASD?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Okay. I'm not intending to upset anyone, and yes, I'm probably quite insane wrt this but I wanted some views on this theory.

Some of you know that I believe that stressed-out mothers, and inhumane labours 'triggers' autism in babies with a genetic predisposition. This is because of the hormone Oxytocin that is essential for bonding, love, social interaction etc. is lower in stressed mothers, and supressed by adrenaline during pregnancy and childbirth.

This has not been researched. It probably won't be. Who would fund it?

Okay, with me so far?

Now, I have read some alluded to statistics (not found the source yet) that suggests in Afro-American families there is a prevelance of just a sixth of the number of caucasions diagnosed with autism. In American Indians, it is half. These two societies are matriarchal.

I'll carry on only if I get a few bites............or anyone's interest!

Trying to follow all you've written.
You seem to be saying
WOHM == more stress == ASD
SAHM == less stress (more traditional family setup??) == Non ASD

You're not really going down this path are you?

I think you need to seperate out the logic

establish what you mean by stress and how measured - cortisol levels in blood?

establish that levels of stress in women are growing over the decades - must be some published stuff on that

think about how to establish that being in a matriachal society is less stressful for women (this might be easiest to investigate - the UN does polls of wellbeing etc by country so you could try to link high levels of well being in women with your theories of the country and culture)

Look at any evidence that stress in pregnancy does cause asd. There is loads of research into autism maybe dolfog can find a link.

I have to say that instinctively and not completely non-scientifically i'm uneasy with this idea as it seems another stick to beat women with - you caused the asd by being stressed . if only you didn't work/ weren't ambitious/ were more happy to stay at home/ work in a less demanding job/coped better/didn't muck up your own birth your ds wouldn't have asd.

While I'm open to the idea of a genetically predisposed trigger I would have thought stress only one of other potentially more important trigger-ers such as toxins in food and environment, smoking, alcohol and drugs, birth injuries, scans, immunisations, food allergies, infections etc

this is the ASD/migrant link. I am sure I have read further in this, but cannot find links right now, sorry.

No I'm not saying that at all Grapes. I think SAHM and WOHM cannot be measured in terms of difference in stress levels. I think (personally) that SAHM are more stressed. There is a teeny bit of research about this which I came across moons ago that indicated mothers of 2 or more children at home had higher stress levels over a week than junior doctors or whatever.

latedeveloper

Thank you for your post. You are right. The logic needs seperating and working through systematically.

As I mentioned though, this is just at theory stage.

The apology in my OP was for the implication that mothers caused ASD by being stressed. That is kind of what I am alluding to, but I am trying to suggest that the cause of mother's stress is the patriarchal society that we live in.

And it takes a further leap to suggest the irony that an increase in a competive patriarchical male world has led to more women giving birth to children with the 'male brain'.

Now the recording of numbers of people with ASD has increased. There are arguments that suggest it is on the increase, and arguments that suggest it is simply dx that are on the increase. But this 'research' doesn't date back very far for either. I tend to believe it is on the increase.

Thank's for the link silverfrog I'll read it in a bit.

I would doubt though, that if there was any truth at all in what I was suggesting, it would be as simple as high stress level = severe and low stress level = less severe.

I also doubt that you could ignore genetic predisposition.

I see, but if we can't even tentatively establish that stress causes asd then is it worth thinking about what causes that stress (be it patriachy or a failing potato crop)?

Happy to blame loads of other shite on our consumerist, post industrial, patriarchal malaise I hasten to add

Congratulations on your pregnancy by the way!

Well I was suggesting that biologically, it was actually lack of oxytocin and increase of adrenaline.

I'm sure I read (yeah I know, - crap evidence) that children with ASD were not only more likely to be adopted, but babies who were adopted were more likely to have ASD than the general population.

So mothers that cannot for whatever reason, cope with brining up a baby......

stewie I was simply using SBC's terminology. I don't much like it either tbh, but was trying to illustrate.

What I meant was being less proficient in social skills, empathy and emotional intelligence, and I meant less about how a brain is structured and more about the chemical balance of hormones.

SBC (I don't rate him all that much generally btw) has done quite a number of studies on the improved ability for social interaction and empathy for male teenagers after sniffing oxytocin.

Oh, and that the chemical balance can affect how the brain DEVELOPS which means it can look different on scans.

Thank you for the book recommendation btw, and for coming on here Stewie.

I'm still going on though - he he.

Perhaps think of it as an idea for a novel from now on, if you have managed so far to believe it is a vaguely plausable idea, which you might not.

Okay, the rest of the novel goes like this:

Just dashing off to get DD from Nursery... but will be back later in day & very interested in your thread - so I hope it will still be here & progressing! Briefly: DD likely to be diagnosed with ASD soon & I had a reasonably stressful labour - I tried to be calm about it, but things like a) my partner/DH was unexpectedly overseas during it, because she arrived early, so b) I was alone for most of the labour and c) the not-nice-midwife kept saying she'd be 'back to check on me in a few hours' which was a bit scary... and d) she attached - without explaining what it would involve - a fetal monitor to my DD's (inside the womb) head, causing lots of bruising all over her head. Had I known it would be screwed into her scalp, I would never have accepted. etc.
I know that many, many women have a much worse labour than that, but I feel it must have put DD under stress, having her head pierced, and me trying to be v calm but actually feeling v alone & a bit shocked quite HOW painful the rapidly-progressing labour was.
Sorry if this is all irrelevant & I've misunderstood, but of course I am wondering a lot atm about why my DD has these problems - I fully accept it will be mainly genetic, but wonder about the triggers, and so interested in your thread. Though sorry if I've misunderstood in my rush. Whoops... DD now going to be collected rather later than planned...
Hope to read more later...

None of my neighours were suprised when it turned out my lad had sen (Note not asd per se but that he was less than "perfect" in the broadest sensee).

I'm not gonna go into all the details but suffice to say from a layman's perspective, it's hard to see how the stress I was under (7 months pg is hulluva short time to adapt to 1st time parenthood alone etc). The fact that DS's dad & half bro are on the spectrum kinda points to heriditary too.

I certainly think maternal stress levels have an impact on the developing child, as does environmental pollution, nutrition (thinking more starvation that 20 vit supplements a day) etc. I know it's not politically correct to say so but yes modern women are under more pressure in SOME respects.

However very few of us have men away at war, suffer the sort of grinding poverty that means another bairn born means a 10 year old sibling will have to join the workforce etc. We are able most of the time to leave abusive partners as our men no longer have the legal right to beat us. Going it alone no longer means fear of being locked up in a mental asylum for the rest of our lives. I think women in the past endured far higher stress levels at any level of society below the aristocracy than we do today in the west as a general rule just because of poverty(and even then Anne Boylen and Katherine of aragon had good cause to be stressed lol!)

I've done quite a bit of research into rates of asd across cultures and compared to some neurological conditions it does appear to occur fairly uiniformly across the globe, with some localised spikes (glostershire, and silicon valley). This suggests that an evolutionary level there must have been some advantage to having asd type traits in the past for mankind (perhaps like sickle cell arose as a mechanism against malaria).

I'm convinced and have said it before that I think the asd spectrum is probably about 20 totally seperate conditions all lumped into one and that in 20-50 years will be identified as such as neurology is an infant science.

Bear with me cos the end of my waffle concludes that I'm fairly sure there is an element of heriditary stuff going on BUT that the environment including maternal stress levels can PERHAPS in some cases tip a developing brain "over the edge" into the asd spectrum or make the asd more severe than it would have been.

I do know that if I have another child I'll have no qualms in telling the professionals dealing with my DS I have no time for their stressful "reviews" etc until AFTER I finish delivering and bfing my bairn. That stress which I can control I will.

Sorry I didn't mean this to become an essay

(Sorry not read whole thread)

But huge differences in different societies would also be explained if diet was a major contributing factor........

(Me being keen on the GAPS diet at the moment. I think the theory behind it explains an awful lot)

ASD is on the increase, because of the lack of value that we place on females, their roles and the things they are a bit better at than men, i.e. social skills, empathy, ability to put oneself in other's shoes etc. (You could suggest that these things were learned but the politics of breastfeeding does suggest that women did the social/society stuff, and men just wandered around the bush fighting ocassionally before coming home to food that the women had gathered, cooked, and children she had cared for.)

A combination of evolution and environmental factors make the baby with ASD more likely to be born.

I think there is a rose tinted ness about the thinking that all problems today are caused by modern day living and it was wonderful back than.
I'm sure people had loads to stress about in the good old days too. Illnesses which we just vaccinate against, having loads of children (no contraception so constantly pregnant or lactating), getting your head chopped off and potato famines, of course.

If there is a link with the oxytocin/adrenaline I think it would be more specific than just general stress - that's probably always been around. It may be more environmentally related - hormones in your chickens kind of thing.

Don't really have any links but following with interest...

no, I don't htink you could ignore genetic predisposition. I am out of touch in this area, but the last stuff I read had the genetics tending towards the geeky AS side of things - you know, the higher incidence rates in Silicon Valley etc etc. not really the more severe stuff.

but I am still interested as to where you even stated down this path from. of course no single story can prove or disprove anyhting. but it's a pretty big leap from SBC's work with male teens (also don't rate him) and oxytocin to ASD rates in children of stressed mothers (the different ASDs woudl need separating ut for a start).

I'm with Stewie on the male/female brain stuff (I keep hassling Amazon to get that book onto kindle format, but will have to give in and buy it soon!), but there is certainly milage in the chemical balance stuff.

This could only be discovered with the evidence of different medical conditions which lead to autism symptoms. As there can be so many different medical reason which lead to a child having autism that to separate the research for women's stress levels would be so random. For me I have two boys with autism and two girls without which would sign post that it is genetics. I do believe that a small proportion of children that nurture has created autistic symptoms esp with modern day parenting of whatever decision you make will be judged by someone and parents desperate for the perfect child But as autism is about symptoms splitting nature and nurture is impossible and as seen in the past can lead to horrific treatment. So while yes chemical balance can effect but this too would probably genetically pre disposed. Hence the person who has put the child up for adoption may also have the same illness, but never dx. When I child is dx a natural instinct is to see similar traits in others within the family.

And ASD is more likely to be prevelant in males, meaning that their 'sex' could be slowly changing to something slightly different to what it was as an 'average'

Forgive the awfully clumsy sentence above. I hope it doesn't cause offence. I didn't really know how else to put it.

Grey24 - ds2 had a lot of stress too. A very quick and painfull delivery. No time for him to adjust so his lungs were still full of stuff and he couldn't breathe. He was in shock, grey and in scbu for a day.
So far fingers crossed, seems ok - he's 10 months so still a while to go before I breathe a sigh of relief.
Dd has asd - but then she has an extra chromosome. So, it's definetely genetic for her. (I was groggy after an emcs and did have problems bonding with her though.)
Ds1 had a dream natural birth (with a doula) and is very chilled out and nt.

Hmmmm, so far, I seem to be going on your lines Starlight.
Lets see which way ds2 goes...

What I suppose I am getting at, is are we going round full circle to men wandering around the bush with the ocassional fight, and women running society?

Is evolution and nature now trying to balance things a bit better?

Is it a fact that opposed to other species, we have developed and come as far as we have due to our sociability, our social skills, our ability to work together for the benefit for all? Is that where our progress comes from?

Are we now drifting away from this and nature is compensating through a complex method?