Is it my fault that my son has a learning disability?

[Nuria72]

Can't shake this from my head.
When I had my 7 year old boy I had a very long labour. I was induced but took two days to be 10cm dilated. Then I was pushing for three hours. At one point the midwife said I may need a c-section. I was terrified as a friend said that the last thing you want is an emergency c-section, and the recovery take ages (my parents live in another country so I was kind of on my own). So I said "Oh no!, I don't want a c-section!". The midwives told the doctor and they let me push a bit more with no result. They said then there was fetal distress so they rushed me to the theater. All the way there I kept pushing. When I finally was prep for the surgery they manage to deliver de baby with vantouse.
When I first saw him he look grey/blue. They took him and he cried straight away. The apgar was 9/10 and then 10/10.
He was a big baby (4kg 650g).I guess that why they broke my coxis and took me months to find out why I was in such agony when I seat down.
Anyway, I was not worried then. Until he was around 3 years old and notice a difference with the other children in the nursery. He was behind in everything: taking, walking, space awareness, potty training, coordination...
We went to lots of doctors and they only conclusion is that he has a "delayed development".
He has in school special needs teaching and we went to speech therapist for a couple of years. He is no good at math specially, and I would say he is almost two years behind.
My Mum was with me when I had him and she always say it's my fault. I should have been more assertive with asking for a c-section.
But no doctor said it's for sure these problems are due to his birth.
His father and my brother are both dyslexic, so I wonder if couldn't be possible to be genetic.
We have another little boy who is 4 and very bright and well coordinated. He was borned by a planned c-section.

Sorry for the long winded message.

Nope. Lots of babies are born in similar circumstances and they don't all have disabilities. Lots have fetal distress. Lots have been pushed for a while.

What on earth is your mother hoping to achieve by telling you it is your fault?

Please shake this from your head. Your Mum really needs to stop this talk. Like Starlight says- it is just the way he is. You sound like a loving mum- please don't make yourself anxious and miserable listening to your mother's pointless and upsetting comments.

Oh! thaks so much ladies. I have spent so many hours searching about evidences on this. I can't find any straight answer!. Some websites though cite long labour as a cause of learning dissabilities...

I would echo what the others have said, don't upset yourself by listening to your mother. It is nobody's 'fault' that your son has a disability.

Sounds like your mum is having problems coming to terms with the fact that she has a grandchild with a disability. That is her problem, not yours.

Re ur message at 14:08, How do they explain children who were born naturally with uncomplicated pregnancies or labour having difficulties in life such as Autism, LD etc. We fell in the trap of blaming ourselves but it really does not help anybody as you said there are no straight answers unfortunately.

Sorry your mother is having trouble coming to terms with your DS disability but you should not pay attention to it. It is not your fault.

Hello
I really don't think there was anything you did or didn't do in birth that caused your DSs delayed developmet. I can understand, up to a point, your mum trying to find a cause but she is being staggeringly unhelpful and needs to be ignored!

DD had foetal distress, rapidly decelerating heartbeat during contractions, a birth apgar of 4(she spent her first 48 hours in scibu where at 7.5lbs she looked like the baby of ogres next to the premature babies). She is NT.

DS had a very easy birth, he was here within an hour of the first contraction. He had high apgars. DS was a very «easy» baby, his sister was and still is the hypersensitive queen of overreaction. yet it is DS who has delayed speech is showing signs he may be autistic.

If birth had anything to do with it surely things would be the other way round.

Have you got someone perhaps to tell your Mum simply to 'stop it'. Your Father? A sibling? You don't need her 'blaming' you. She MUST stop it.

I am thinking if she could speak english I would send a link to this thread!

Anyway. THANKS. You are making me feel so much better. I was feeling particularly low today. :)

Nuria72

The key to this is "His father and my brother are both dyslexic, so I wonder if couldn't be possible to be genetic". The issues you describe would appear to be part of both families histories, which will have part of families genetic history for generations.
Have a look at this Dyslexia and Reading links list or What Causes Your Dyslexia? Group of links (you have to go to the last page of links and work backwards)

I agree wth Dollfrog. It's taken me years to work out that my own son seems to have inherited the genetic weaknessness of both my own and his father's line. He's also inherited his father's eagle eyesight, my mothers determination, my dad's kind heart as well as his disabilities and I love him for it.

You've been told your son has a developmental delay not a full stop. That means that with love and care and determination on both your parts he WILL make progress. The brain doesn't finish maturing until 25 anyways so you still have lots of time to make a difference.

The one thing that will help him more than any other is acceptance of who and what he is, not who your mother (or anyone else!) would like him to be. To overcome the obstacles he faces he needs support, love and encouragement. YOU need that too, and if your mother is unable to offer that support wholeheartedly and without judgement or predjudice then she needs to step away before she destroys your confidence as a parent (& so your ability to give him the help he needs) and the child's self-esteem. She is being VERY selfish.

Acceptance is the 1st step on a long road.

Lots of hugs to you, i went through the exact same experience with my ds1 seems like a paralel universe, it is not your fault at all, no parents will want their dc to have any kind of disability, last thing u want is to stress yourself about it. Just ignore everyone who does not seem to understand u, i do that. its not easy but its helps.

Crikey that could have been written by me! Infact I've thought about asking similar myself...My son is 8 and was born after a very long labour which left me partly traumatised i think! I was never threatened with emergency c section and i dont really know what went wrong but i know that he seemed to be stuck for a long time and all they seemed to do was keep upping the synto-drip which only seemed to intensify the agony without much in the way of progress. I think his arm may have been twisted back as my mother says they checked that straight after he was born, saying dont worry his arm's ok.. Anyway my son also has learning difficulties with a diagnosis of dyspraxia and bordering on other things...nothing we cant over come but it does get me down sometimes wondering whether the birth had anything to do with it. But I do think he may have these problems anyway as there is a genetic link aswel as his father has similar difficulties. The replies on your post have been very comforting to me also!

I blamed my son's disabilities on eating coleslaw in pregnancy! (Lots of it..shop bought) I was so upset and ashamed I didn't dare vice my belief for years but when I finally did... the paed laughed (in a nice way) and said 'don't be daft, it was nothing you did, he was simply born to be different'

Our children are simply different..some thro genetics, some thro birth trauma true, but most... they just are..

And your MUm needs to wind her neck RIGHT in!

Tell your mum she is out of order to even suggest that it is your fault! that is truly unkind.

My sister had her daughter after 50 hours labour, they used ventouse and pulled and pulled, baby was indistress and it took another hour for them to get a free theater. Had a emergency c section and the cord was wrapped twice around my nieces neck, she was blue and not breathing.

SHE is perfectly NT, did well at school, passed everything and has graduated at university.

It is NOT your fault!

Oooh, now I want a baked potato with lots of coleslaw!

OP: My son popped out after a textbbok 7 hour labour and I only puched for 5 mins and out he popped! He also has sen/sn (severe dyslexia/asd)

What would your mother say I did wrong? I am sorry she is not more supportive of you and your son.

With DS2, I had 6hr labour, about 2-3 minutes of pushing, and he was born (didn't even make it to the delivery room). He has SNs/learning disabilities.

With DS3, I was in and out of labour for 2 days, ended up with ventouse delivery as he was having some distress. Completely and utterly NT.

Ignore your mother, or better yet, tell her she's wrong and to stop saying it.

Your mum is talking rubbish. He breathed straight away, and his apgar scores were really good. Readings are taken from the umbilical cord blood at delivery, and I'll bet those were good too. 'Fetal Distress' in labour is really common, it just means a funny trace on the ctg heart monitor; this is seen in around one baby in three.

A small percentage of fetal distress/ funny trace babies really are in trouble, and need to get out before too long... but midwives don't know which till they're out, crying and showing off their apgar scores etc.

I think your mum might be feeling guilty herself that she didn't make the doctors give you a c/section. All nonsense, but that's grandmothers for you.

I agree with maria that it's most likely that your mother is projecting some feeling of guilt onto you: either a feeling that she should somehow have protected you, because she is your mother, or a fear that she may have passed on something genetic.

My mother and I have had various conversations in which she has suggested that dd's physical problems are the result of the bad climate (I live abroad), mishandling from the medical profession, or something inherited from dh. The gist of it is always: if you hadn't married a foreigner and left me none of this would have happened.

We all know perfectly well that the knowledge she is trying to push away from herself, because she cannot handle it, is the knowledge that the condition that is going some way towards wrecking dd's life is genetic, inherited through the maternal line, through me, herself and my maternal grandmother.

But she staunchly denies medical problems we all know that she had had because she cannot bear this knowledge.

I am learning to spot the signs and change the topic of conversation. It's all you can do.

My delivery was dead straightforward, my DS has AS, co-ordination difficulties and a speech disorder, my sister had a pretty horrendous delivery, my nephew came out royal blue and fairly underweight, he's completely healthy and NT.

Even when something is directly caused by birth, it's still not the mother's fault, medical staff will do what the mother asks if it suits what is happening, but if her wishes were going to endanger the baby, they'd be saying so...it's just one of these things that no-one could gave predicted.

As per my belief, it's not at all your fault. Many of the babies are born with the same case but they all are not suffering from disabilities. It is quite possible that this problem is due to genes.