geezermom

Hey gang. I just read a post from a member who's preschooler has some medical problems, and like a rotten cherry on top, he now has gotten whacked with the possibility of autism, too.

Seems like there are some newer members coming online, so I thought they might be interested in some interesting stuff we all talked about under "Autistic Traits In Utero???"...a thread started by Ausomemom2. It was a great thread - 1700+ people read it. Check out her original for some interesting commentary.

Anyway, for the benefit of newer members, I'm re-posting the article summaries linking the incidence of autism with fetal problems and/or those that came up during or right after delivery. Hope you newer readers get inspired to surf some of the medical publication sites...don't think I'm allowed to list them in our forum, sorry. There's no cure for autism, but educating ourselves makes us better advocates and at least for me, makes me feel less helpless.
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1. April 2001 Pediatrics 107(4):E63
Authors are Juul-Dam, Townsend, & Courchesne from University of California, San Diego, La Jolla. Title is: Prenatal, perinatal, and neonatal factors in autism, pervasive developmental disorder NOS and the general population.

Says autistic group showed higher incidence of uterine bleeding, lower incidence of maternal vaginal infection, & less use of maternal contraceptives during conception. The PDD NOS group showed higher incidence of high bilirubine levels (aka, jaundice)

2. June 2004 Arch Gen Psychiatry; 61(6):618-27
Authors are Glasson, Bower, Petterson, and others from Schools of Population Health and Psychiatry & CLinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. Title is: Perinatal factors and the development of autism: a population study

Says children with autistic spectrum disorders had significantly older parents & were more likely to be firstborn. Case mothers had greater frequencies of threatened abortions (miscarriages), use of epidurals, induced labor, a labor duration of less than 1 hour. Cases more likely to have experienced fetal distress, been delivered by c-section (elective or emergency), and had an Apgar score of less than 6 at 1 minute. Cases with a diagnosis of Autism had more complications than those with PDD NOS or Aspergers.

3. April 1999 Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, vol. 29, no. 2, pgs 161-166. Authors are Matsuishi, Yamashita, Ohtani, and others from Dept. of Pediatrics & Child Health, Kurume Univerwsity School of Medicine, Kurume, Japan. Title is: Brief Report:Incidence of and Risk Factors for Autistic Disorder in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Survivors

Says survivors of neonatal ICU were more than twice as likely to be identified as being AD (they call it Autistic Disorder). Children with AD had a significantly higher history of the meconium aspiration syndrome. Autistic patients had different risk factors than cerebral palsy.

4. September 2004 Psychopharmacology (Berl);175(2): 196-205
Authors are Laviola, Adriani, Rea, and others from Section of Behavioral Pathophysiology, Lab Fisiopatologia, Dept. of Cellular Biology and Neuroscience, Rome, Italy (might not be exact name of school - tried to translate it out of Italian myself! yikes - no more coffee)

Hold on to your boots - this is a rat study! They focused on the emotional effects of neonatal asphyxia (not enough oxygen) on newborn Wistar rats. Says that the pups who had mild oxygen deprivation showed more social withdrawal, avoidance and inhibition to new things (novelties), and stereotyped behaviors. They also showed more interest in exploring objects than regular pups. The authors compared these consequences to neonatal asphyxia in preterm humans.

How do you spell rat autism??

5. Here's the beginning of an article that just came out Dec. 19, 2005 in Forbes. Its an English synopsis of the above Italian study. It's easy to find in Forbes and even easier to read.

Oxygen Deprivation May Contribute to Autism
MONDAY, Dec. 19 (HealthDay News) -- New research with rats suggests that oxygen deprivation during birth could be a contributing cause of autism

That's all I got! Happy hunting...LeAnne