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

Some ASD traits on my father's side of the family and my eldest sister is a little quirky. I think I am too a bit. My husband is also a little bit socially awkward and he had a cousin who definately was ASD (no dx) and an uncle (cousin's dad) who looks like he is on the spectrum. Son 1s birth was 24 hours. Had to be a ventuse (sp?) at the end and I do wonder if this 'added' to it. For my second labour I refused epidurals, etc so that I could push him out without a ventouse just in case. That saying I have a friend who had the most awful high forceps delivery and her son is fine. for my first pregancy I had loads of scans. The consultant insisted because I was only 7.5 stone when I got pregnant and apparantly underweight (I wish now!) women have underweight babies so I had 5 scans in total. My son was 7lb 14 when born (ho hum!)

My son seemed absolutely fine but had HUGE screaming fits from day 1 and took ages to feed (then didn't stop!) He did get loads of ear infections and had a lot of antibiotics when tiny and I do think this might have excacerbated ASD but I think it is genetic more than anything else.

Message withdrawn

Sorry I haven't been back. Thanks for all your replies.

It seems that most of us had probs during labour. Very interesting. It's nice to 'speak' to others with children similar to my DS. We don't know anyone else with ASD or any groups in our area that we could go to, so it's good to hear others POV's.

ds was a c-section but apparently had to be resucitated. Something a midwife let slip one day as we weren't officialy told about it.
I've often wondered but DH and his dad have autistic/AS type traits.
But at 14 ds is a lovely young man and I wouldn't change him for the world, even with his odd behaviour.

DS1 nearly died when he was born and for a long time I thought that might have had something to do with it.

But I had a very easy, textbook drug-free labour and delivery with DS3, who was fine when he was born, and he is much more autistic than DS1.

Hello,

My ds has just been diagnosed with asperger's. He's 5. It didn't come as much of a surprise though as my younger brother has it and so does my cousin's son (all on the same side of the family). What's odd is that all three boys look spookily alike - very handsome - they could be triplets apart from the age difference. All have beautiful big slightly bonkers brown eyes.

I didn't know that a difficult birth could be implicated - do you really think so? My delivery was fine - but ds was only 6lbs and looked much too skinny, which has bothered me a lot since. I had a lot of stress in pregnancy as his dad buggered off in the first trimester. Also have also worried a lot that drinking quite a few odd glasses of wine in pregnancy (not binge drinking but certainly more than I should) might have not helped. Oh dear. Feel sure it is all my fault one way or other. While I am here what tips do you all have for asperger's kids - have just had the day from hell with him and feel pretty despondent...

my ds1 is 5 with as and i had a normal drug free birth and though he was 3 weeks early he was nearly 10 lbs. he was also a content baby - as traits only appeared as a toddler.
i do wonder about him being ivf, but my twins are nt and ivf. there is no sign of as in mine or dh's family.