Increased chance of 2nd child on autistic spectrum?

[anna001]

Hi all,
DH and me would love to have a 3rd child. We already have DS1 who is 6 this week and ASD with hypotonia, DS2 is 4 and NT. Does anybody have any idea what the chances are of having a second child with ASD? I know they are increased but have read so many different figures on the internet - ranging from around 2% to 35%???? I am also 39 and I have also read that you are more likely to have an autistic child if you are over 35. Although any child would be welcomed and loved, it causees such heartbreak to watch DS1 struggle to understand and cope with school - he gets very distressed. I'm not sure I would find the strength to do it for a second. Not to mention the impact on our existing children...such a dilemma. I already feel very blessed that I have 2 gogeous children - sometimes I feel I should just leave it at that.

Anna: we struggled with this one too for a long time. Actually had a very unprofessional Paed who 'told' us not to have any more children until she arranged genetic testing! WTF! The tests never happened (she didn't get around to it) We had no family history and eventually, after years of agonising over it, decided to go ahead. DD turned out fine.

Nobody can answer this one accurately for you. It's probably more a question of how much you want another child and what your existing family could cope with if lightening did strike twice.

Did you read this one yesterday: www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/12/autism-prenatal-testosterone-womb

I think it's impossible to know the answer to a question like that. The risk figures are based on population risk and tell you nothing about your individual likeliehood of having another ASD child. Many families with ASD children have no family background of ASD meaning that the cause if genetic is a first time variation in the genes. If that were the case for you ( but there is no way of knowing) the risk of it happening again would be no higher than for anyone else. I was lucky enough to have DS1 dxd by a real expert in ASD and he mentioned these factors so I'm just passing them on, I don't know the full story. In my case we do have a family background but that in itself does not mean DS1 has the same kind of autism - though it is looking increasingly likely.

iirc there's a slightly increased risk of having a child on the autistic spectrum if you already have one who is, but it's not massively higher than the "normal" population

Well, everything you read says it 'runs in families' - but I don't actually know what % of families have more than one child on the spectrum ? Not much help ....

I thought I had it straight in my head. We would love another child, we would cope if the unlikely happened. Its the 35% likelihood that scared me. This was told to to me by a health visitor I met (friend of friend.

I don't know the statistics at all, but I have ds1 (asperger's diagnosed at six), ds2 NT and ds3 appears NT - still a baby (in fact more social than the lot of us together).

We didn't really know that ds1 has aspergers when we decided to have ds2, we DID know about ds1 when we decided to have a 3rd (there is 2 years between 1 and 2, and 8 years between 2 and 3). Our eldest is developing into a lovely young man who gives us great joy (as well as difficulties ) and we felt that we wanted another child even though we knew there was a risk of ASD again.

I did things during to pregnancy that I felt may help avoid an ASD such as not eating fish (I read a report that had anecdotal evidence that a bunch of women who took their fish-oil supplements during pregnancy had a much higher incidence of ASD in their children). I avoided caffeine and diet drinks. I had 3 glasses of red wine throughout the entire pregnancy (again read something that said that mothers who abstained completely from alcohol (as I did when carrying DS1 but not DS2 and DS3) had a slightly higher incidence of boys with behavioural problems than the general population).

These things probably had absolutely no bearing on my DS3 but were things that I felt I had to do and I'm not suggesting that others should too, just telling you what I did only.

All I can say is that ds3 is such a fantastic addition to our family. I can cope with all of them mainly because my ASD son has matured enough (he's 11). Had I had 3 in a row I may be positively insane by now . We may even have one more.

Not an easy decision, but all I can say is go with your heart.

Best wishes!

I have three DSs. The eldest was dx'd with HFA at the age of 3 But is doing fantastically well (he's now 9).

The second is neurotypical.

The third who is now 4 is also autistic, much more severely so than DS1. He is non-verbal and comes across as very classically autistic.

I would guess there was an increased chance if you have others in the extended family. We're pretty sure that both grandads are on the spectrum so... We took the gamble and had a 3rd (our eldest is NT) last year. There will always be a kind of grey cloud hovering over his first couple of years until we can see one way or the other (DS was different even as a baby) but he's 5m now and already seems more interested in people than DS so we are hopeful... watch this space