To all parents of children with Aspergers Syndrome

[JeanieG]

My DS is 11 and has AS. I have been thinking lately about where it has come from as I have a suspicion that my dad also has AS but has never been diagnosed. I also think I remember reading somewhere that difficulties in pregnancy/labour and premature labour could be somewhat responsible for AS.

Anyway, my questions are;

Is there any truth in this?
Did any of you have problems/difficulties with your pregnancy or labour?

I hope this doesn't offend anyone, it's just that this has been on my mind a lot lately.

Thanks

Hi Jeanie,

My DD is 5 she also has AS, she has only just (this week) been given a Dx, and tbh i have also been asking myself this question.

There is no ASDs in either of our familys as far as we know, i had a straight forward textbook pregnancy but my labour was awful, 26 hours active labour, she was finally delivered with forceps after 2 failed ventose(sp?) atempts, she was then taken straight to intentive care where she stayed for a week as she was born in shock.

I also seem to remember reading somewhere that 60% of people with AS had some sort of birth complications.

Hi

Again no family history here. My dd is 8 and has mild asd. My ds is absolutely fine.
Had a car accident 3 days before she was born. When I went to the hospital she had an erratic hearbeat and her birth was very quick. I was only 24 when I had her too.
So bearing in mind I had a girl, no family history and was young I think accident probably did cause it.

DS hasn't been assessed yet but I suspect will be diagnosed with AS/HFA. Pregnancy was fine. Labour wasn't great (distressed baby, ventouse, cord round neck etc) but the distress was probably due to the diamorphine. Both me and DH are somewhat geeky and socially awkward, and I suspect other older relatives are pretty damn close to the spectrum. So I think of it as being likely to be genetic, I've never felt it was due to DS birth.

My ds has been assessed as falling into the 'high risk' group for AS tho' he wasn't given a DX. He was ventouse and the midwife said his head was 'the worst she had seen' - very pointy. Dh thinks it may have come from his dad tho' - who certainly behaves like he has traits of AS.

Total chaos - that sounds a bit like me and dh. I read recently a theory that As may appear when parents share the same traits of AS, even tho' they're not officially AS themselves.

My eldest from my first marriage is I think undiagnosed asd. When he was very young he had some strange quirks, like lining up his cars constantly, and was very ordered with his belongings, if I moved anything into the'wrong' place, there would be meltdown. As he got older he memorised the entire tube timetable and routes and the bus routes. He could tell anyone how to make any journey to go any where, which bus to catch where it would take you, etc. At the time I thought it was kind of quirky, but just that he was like that, i.e. geeky. I am aswell, so thought nothing of it. He went to school, found it difficult to make friends, so I moved him to another school, etc. Eventually he learned to make friends, but still finds it difficult.
He went through a difficult time in his teens, but settled down. He is still a little 'different', in that he finds it difficult to understand when people are making jokes, or sarcastic comments and often takes them literally. Lately he told me, he has always found it difficult, and he sometimes feel quite hurt by peoples' comments, and often shocked, when people are jesting. He says he finds it difficult to 'remember' to eat, and has to remind himself.
He is of to university in a couple of weeks, and I am worried about him. I have spoken to him about this, but I think he is worried about being seen to be strange, and would prefer to just get on with things than get an assessment, etc.
Any way, I know I have rambled on, but with him, I had an extremely long and protracted labour, and in the end they pulled him out with forceps.
My two year old, I was in labour for 36 hours, failed venthouse, etc, ending in c-secton, and his face and forehead were cut with the scalpel. He now has alot of issues, and am currently going through assessment.
I think it is true about difficult labours etc. It is certainly am important factor imho.

OOOPS! Never meant to use 'difficult' so many times

It's really interesting that most people so far have had forceps or ventouse. When ds was being assessed no-one asked me about his birth at all, tho' I suppose they would have had access to his notes.

Hi, My DS (9) hasn't yet been assessed, however we have been told by several people now that he is almost certinally AS.

I had a long labour with him (he was in the OP or back-to-back position), and he was born by forceps after 2 failed vontouse attempts.

We think my dad may be AS, he certinally has lots of odd traits!

Will watch this thread with interest. I have suspected that DSs problems may have had something to do with his birth.

Have just googled it and there is quite alot of info about ASD and hypoxia (oxygen deprivation) at birth. DS1 was blue when he was born. Will have a better look later.

Same here sarah my DD was also starved of oxygen, if my memory serves me correctly the hospital tested the blood from DD cord shortly after birth, the results were that she had been starved of oxygen for a short amount of time about 4 hours before she was born. Our maternity hospital sent DD for a MRI scan when she was 2 weeks old(as our consultant was taking part in some research)which showed that she did have a slight bleed on her brian but told us not to worry as this happens alot even in straight forward labours.

It could be that there is a genetic pre-disposition to ASD, however the oxygen deprivation makes worse what would otherwise be a mild and probably not noticed ASD??????

There has been a study on identical twins which was interesting. One of the twins was oxygen starved at birth, the other wasn't. Both have AS, however the oxygen starved twin was much much worse that the one who had a normal birth. This shows there must have been some external factor, at some point, to make one worse than the other - otherwise as identical twins surely their place on the spectrum would also be identical.

DS 10 is AS, difficult birth with him, he was in the posterior position and had to go to SCBU for the first night with breathing difficulties.

DD 3 has been asessed and they suspect she is on the spectrum but want to wait another year to see how her language develops before they dx, she was a Caesarian, born with breathing difficulties (they both made a funny noise-like a moaning sound) and she also has CP.

our psych who is a specialist told me that they used to think that ASD was caused by problems at birth but now they think the ASD causes the problematic births cos the baby is already ASD before it is born due to genetic factors.

I am AS as well but i dont know if i was a difficult birth, i shall ask my mum though!!

I'm about to do a post of my own, just trying to get myself together...

DS was diagnosed with AS only on Friday. I was questioned about labour/birth then.

I had Obstetric Cholestasis in pregnancy, and he was born at 36 weeks, induced. He had difficulty feeding after birth, and was diagnosed with a urinary infection and they found a strep b colonisation on his ear.

Thing is, when they went through "ticking all the boxes", I ticked even more boxes than he did... will post separately on that ...

Jenk that's a really interesting theory.

With ds1 (ASD) I had high blood-pressure during the second half of pregnancy. Labour was long (40hrs of established labour) but fairly straighforward. The only difficulty was when his shoulders got stuck. He was over a week late, and still requires a virtual cattle-prod to get him moving.

With ds2 (AS) he was induced early because of his size and the risk of him getting stuck. The labour was very straightforward and relatively easy, although ds2's shoulders got stuck briefly.

Lots of AS/ASD traits on both sides of the family.

We have autism in the family and it occured to me that it had indeed been passed down to my ds. However it's interesting to read about hypoxia and forceps/ventouse with so many of us as my ds was induced at 37 weeks and delivered by forceps. He was suffering from foetal distress, his heart rate was all over the place, and he immediately went to SBCU and stayed there for 10 days.

I have often wondered about this as well. DS is 7 has AS and had a difficult birth. We also had 2 failed ventuouse attempts before he was delivered by forceps. Not very scientific as this is all based on self-reporting but there seems to be a pattern here between difficult births and AS

I feel guilty about it all as I had an epidural which made the contractions less strong in the 2nd stage and so I spent 4 hours attempting to push. They let the epidural wear off and put me on synotocin to make the contractions stronger but it was too much for me (non-stop contraction) and DS's heart rate began to dip which is why they got him out quickly after that. I will always wonder, if I hadn't had an epidural, whether he would be OK.

That said, I think my father has undiagnosed AS and DH finds it hard to make friends and has little imagination so maybe the genetics are there too.

Hiya

DS1 has AS / HFA as his dx but I will answer the questions (also have a ds3 who ahs ASD but no firm dx yet, more severe)

1. I ahve as traits certainly, very posssibly diagnosable. My Mum does as well, Grandad, nephew, and my cousin has diagnosed as.

2. During the pg I had hyperemesis and had to be hospitalised for a drip, then I developed pre-eclamnpsia and eventually eclampsia- was fitting in the ambulance. It was badly mismanaged, and an inudtion caused ds1 to go into distress but there was no available staff to do a c-section (another pre-eclamsia case delivering at same time), plus they lost bloods and wont risk a c-section then because of clotting risks of HELLP syndrome. Notes say ds1's heart rate dropped worryingly. he was born with IUGR, 38.5 weeks term weighing 5lbs 5oz, normal length, scans showed he ahd lost at elast a pound in uetro but because BP had been erratic (several admissions but always sent home after a day or two) the staff ahd failed to induce early enough.

DS3 however was a normal pg and labour.

HTH

Oh and Dh has earned the nickname 'mad profdessor' because of his svant like ability with electronics (and very poor overall educational achievement) if thats relevant

ANd MIL's / FIL's strange behaviours very well documented on MN- MIL alsmost certainly severe OCD, FIl is erm- un ique (they're no longer together)

Hi, my ds aged 5 today, has been diagnosed with autism for the last 2 years. His consultant who is really honest, has said that the most likly cause is his prem birth at 30wks.

ds2 was born at 28wks, due to fetal distress, his heart rate was so slow it was barely detectable but they cannot explain why!

He has been dx'd with gdd, OCD & Social anxiety disorder but this is likely to be changed to ASD.
HE also has mild CP.

No family history in our extremely large family except for a cousin wiht severe autism as a result of complications from measles as a baby.

deeja - my DH (and to a lesser extent myself) sounds very similar to how you describe your teenage DS - and we both had a great time at Uni. Advantage of Uni is that you don't tend to be forced into close proximity with those you don't get on with. Also Uni tends to have "geeky" societies - role playing games/tolkien etc where similarly minded people can meet up.

DS2 (ASD) - normal pregnancy and extremely quick birth, no complications. But at 10 days old he developed a fairly rare skin condition, Staphlycoccal Scalded Skin Syndrome, which put him in intensive care, then on baby ward for a week, with huge doses of intravenous antibiotics. He was also bandaged from head to foot for a month, which meant that the normal skin-to-skin bonding process didn't happen, though luckily I could still bf after 48 hours.

I am pretty sure that this triggered his autism - and that it was then worsened by regular steroids and antibiotics for asthma and eczema, vaccinations etc. I don't believe any one of these 'caused' his autism, but I do think that they made it worse. DS1 has traits, but functions pretty well in the world - I sometimes wonder if DS2 would simply have been a bit 'quirky' were it not for his early history.