Is Autism linked to Birth Trauma?

Hi 
Could you please sent me link to this article or research? 
I had a traumatic birth. Forceps delivery, heart rate dropped, 7-8 weeks premature. None of the doctors wanted to do his mri scan to check if he has any brain injury at the time ( from my point of view it's very poorly of them ) .
Also his young constantly was sticking out which could be a reason for his brain injury after traumatic birth. When I asked for mri for him no one wants to help me with it. It's now 10 years he is diagnosed with moderate to severe autism. 

I had a difficult birth, forceps delivery which apparently flattened my head on one side. As a child used to have unpleasant out of body experiences and night terrors, which seem similar to temporal lobe epilepsy [the temporal lobe being the bit that got squashed by the forceps!].

But.. I haven't had a diagnosis yet, and have rubbed along for 40+ years labelled a fussy intolerant cynic. And there are plenty of autistic traits amongst my family, and some weird and wonderful genetic mutations, which wouldnt have anything to do with birth trauma.

I believe that birth trauma and/or pregnancy complications can trigger Asperger's/autism if, and only if, there is an underlying genetic vulnerability. I also believe that not enough research has been carried out looking at birth trauma as a significant causal factor in ASC in certain cases.

I know that everyone has a theory about birth trauma and aspbergers; I believe that there has been a recent study looking at Hypoxia (lack of oxygen) which has found that there may be some link.

Its something that reall interests me so I am grateful for any responses.

Yes thats what I am saying David...he has been diagnosed with ASD

Are you saying that the child with a diffiult birth is Autistic and the children who did not have a difficult birth are not Autistic?

David

Hi Aspie mum

I agree with u. I had a difficult birth with my son who has autism. I have 3 other kids and their births were fine. I have spoke to other mums who think same too. Inbox me x

Does a difficult birth cause Autism?

I had to be pulled out so I had a difficult birth.

Does falling out of a pram cause Autism?

I have had brain scans in the late nineteen -eighties which did not find anything wrong.

I have since been brain scanned for research.

David

In my case (my own birth, not pregnancy) I was within a few days of my due, fired out in 45 minutes by my mother who only went in there for a check-up lol with no problems and weighing 7lbs 4oz. No birth trauma at all.

I have a personal interest as I was born prematurely and had a difficult birth.  A Doctor was slow coming when I was born.  I fell out of a pram when I was a few weeks old.

However in the 1980s I had brain scans and nothing was found wrong as the result of the scan.

May be one of the above caused my Autism but the brain scan did not detect it.

David.

Like many, I believe Autism is multi-factorial. I think birth trauma is a huge contributor, though. My son was born with a left side congenital diapragmatic hernia (CDH) and was on ECMO for 17 days, on a ventillator until 45 days, and finally left the hospital after 72 days.

CDH is also mutli-factorial, they do not know what causes it. A lot of children born with CDH have Autism. CDH has to do with the bodies development of the diapragm. It doesn't close up early enough. Certainly, in these cases, it cannot be said that Autism caused the CDH. It's an inherently independent physical condition. However, it created a lot of stress and trauma which I believe contributed to his Autism. (Just showing a counter example, not trying to argue - it's possible that feet down babies, or babies who get wrapped up in the cord could've been autistic first)

Also, the statement "most babies who had traumatic births do not have autism" is rather meaningless. The same way that "most people who use tobacco do not have oral cancer" (less than 1% of tobacco users, actually!) and "most people who smoke do not have lung cancer" (This one is true at least until you limit it to certain ages - it takes time to develop lung cancer after all)

The question needs to be asked the other way around, and a little more general. Did a large proportion of Autitistic Children have traumatic births? Comparing again to the tobacco example ... the vast majority (75%) of people over 50 with oral cancer use tobacco regularly. Yes, some things could be lifestyle related (is a tobacco user more likely to get HPV which can also cause oral cancer? Not going into that here...) but here you can see there IS a link, though there didn't appear to be one in the previous statistic.

My overall point: Oral cancer is rare, so is CDH, so is Autism(though much less so than the other two, and becoming less rare) - so if you say "most people who _____ did not have Autism/CDH/Oral Cancer" you could fill in the blank with anything you want and it's probably true. Even after we finally discover the true cause(s), you could put any of those now known causes in that blank and it would still likely be a true statement.

I've seen a report that stated that 80% of children with developmental issues (Autism, ADHD, and others grouped together) had traumatic births. The same report says some other things I find questionable, so I'm not sure of it's veracity - but if it's true it certainly appears to be a huge contributor.

I think even those who aren't genetically dispositioned to Autism, if they have enough trauma in the right areas of the nervous system/brain, they can develop Autism. Based on genetics, it may take more/less of that trauma to create it and really, since it's a spectrum you could just land lower/higher on the spectrum depending.

That being said, I think I've simply outlined ONE mechanism for Autism to occur in people. I'm sure there are others.

I also have a nephew who was a premie, on a ventilator, and is Autistic. It's not as clear cut for him though, there were other factors I won't discuss here that may have played a part, too.

I like your last point. ,)

Our ASCs are genetic.  I don't believe there was birth trauma when I was born (at least nothing was ever told to me and I am sure it would have been, my mum said her last baby - my younger sister - was the most difficult birth).  Both my girls are on the spectrum and although the first was born with an epidural and a ventouse, she was not oxygen starved (although showing signs of tiredness during the labour she did not pass meconium or anything) and my other daughter, who is further down the spectrum was a normal home birth with gas and air.  Both babies were born exactly on their due dates.  My eldest did go blue at 2 days old when we were leaving the hospital and she choked on the fluid they hadn't cleared from her airways but as we were in the carpark outside A&E she got instant attention.  And like I say, she is less far on the spectrum than her sister who didn't suffer anything like that.

I even took my eldest to cranial osteopathy at the recommendation of the HV as she was such a miserable baby, and she suggested that the ventouse may have affected her, but it made not a blind bit of difference.

There may be some people whose birth trauma and oxygen starvation contributed to their ASC but not in our case.  I also wonder, whether it's the other way round: autistic babies are more likely to suffer birth trauma because they are autistic and this affects the birth.  Don't forget, the birth starts because of something perhaps hormonal produced by the baby that is ready to be born, so perhaps in an autistic baby this system is awry and means premature birth, or other birth complications.

We are still early in the process but believe genetics and our ages were a factor. I had a fairly good pregnancy albeit I was really bad with morning sickness but I was over 20 weeks before I was assigned a midwife as they didn't think I would go to term, I had an easy labour of less than an hour, active of about 3 minutes so was very quick, onlu after he was born did we find out he had a heart conditition and a few days later we found out he has CF (cystic fibrosis), we thought we were lucky as he slept through from about 10days old but now we are being told this could have been the first tell tale signs (he's now 4.5 yrs), he was late walking and still has poor balance when he has a cold and because his speech is poor he has a therapist (when I say his speech is poor I don't mean he can't talk, it is just not as clear as it should be although he has a large vocab and no problem with forming sentences, I have been told many times that he talks like a deaf person in how they form words if you know what I mean). I was 30 when I caught with him and was told then I was an older mum with increased problems but even though I have an autistic cousin I never thought in a million years we were at risk. Truth be told I don't think there is a known cause or trigger, perhaps it just happens.

Hi all!

my son was born with no trauma at all,he was normal weight everything was great until his first feed he couldn't suck from birth ! he lost alot of weight after the first few days after birth but eventually he did start sucking the bottle and no one seemed to pick up on it and i was told everything was fine! i knew something was wrong though it wasn't til he wasn't sitting up at a year that it became apparent there was something wrong and he has been diagnosed with autism he doing great now though he has just started talking hes nearly five now :) its an interesting topic though!

EmpoweringLearning said:

Those I meet on the spectrum have normally experienced a birth trauma, one at a very young age, parental separation or stress.  So I am very curious as to where this might lead us.

Eh?

"birth trauma"

"one at a very young age"

How old were the others when they were born?

Hi all,

Your new mod here. Just a friendly reminder that email addresses and other personal information aren't permitted on the forum. 

take care,

Anil

I should be pleased to discuss this important topic.  I think you might like to add into your curiosity an allowance for how someone processes the birth trauma.  People don't all process traumas in the same way.  Once person may have lifelong effects of a trauma, whilst another may have no lingering results at all, from the same trauma.  It is normally a question of what emotions they attach to the event.

Those I meet on the spectrum have normally experienced a birth trauma, one at a very young age, parental separation or stress.  So I am very curious as to where this might lead us.

All the best [Email address removed]

Hi Aspie mum

Been reading posts for some time but this is my first post. Couldn't resist as it is such an interesting subject, i am Mum to an 11 year old aspie.

My view is that my Son has always been on the spectrum even in the womb. He was breech all the way through my pregnancy and my take on this is that this was the way round he wanted to be and he was comfortable  and nothing could have pursuaded him otherwise, much the same as he is now. He was also 4 weeks early! 

I therefore believe that difficult births may occur because the baby is  autistic and not the cause of autism.

It is interesting that eveyone has a different take on this issue.

Hwhaspie

i believe it is, from my sons birth. he got stuck, he was starved of oxygen and the midwifes were very worried. it was awful. he had shoulder problems from birth as they had to yank him out. he got a flat head on one side, still like it to this day but luckily only cosmetic. i have 4 children, he is my 2nd baby. the other 3 were all brilliant fast normal natural births. from birth he had nothing but problems.