Beware Autism Headlines
Today's headline on the BBC reads Problem pregnancy 'autism risk' -- suggesting to the offhand reader that a difficult pregnancy somehow causes autism.
Dig just slightly deeper -- to the blurb -- and you read something a bit different: "Complications during pregnancy and giving birth later in life may increase the risk of having a child with autism, a review of dozens of studies suggests." What this says is that someone reviewed existing research and found that we already have some information about correlations between certain prenatal issues and autism. Most significantly, we know (and have known for a long time) that there is a correlation between older parents and autism. We don't know, however, whether these correlations can be interpreted as cause and effect.
Dig a bit deeper -- into the article itself -- and you learn that:
The cause of the condition [autism] is unclear, and the review team from the Harvard School of Public Health said there was "insufficient evidence" to point to any one prenatal factor as being significant.In other words, there are apparent connections between certain prenatal factors and autism -- but we don't know whether these apparent connections are causal or not. In fact, we don't even know whether these factors are significant or not.
Given the limpness of these findings, perhaps the headline should read "Review of Studies Shows We Still Don't Know What Causes Autism (Though It's Best to Have Babies Younger and to Stay Healthy During Pregnancy)."
But lack of evidence doesn't stop authors, bloggers and product salesmen from offering you advice on "how to prevent autism during pregnancy." Google the term, and you'll find plenty of information about how changing your diet during pregnancy and avoiding exposure to everything from pesticides to antibiotics will prevent autism. Of course, you can't possibly hurt your unborn child (and you could improve his overall health) by eating healthy foods or avoiding toxins. Avoiding treatment for maternal disorders, though, could cause far more problems than it prevents.
Comments
My oldest son has Asperger’s Syndrome. When I was pregnant with him, I got the flu and ran a pretty good fever for a couple of days, and I remember worrying if my illness would affect the baby. Other than that one illness, I had an absolutely “textbook” pregnancy & delivery. But – there is a possible genetic indication for autism in his dad’s family, plus I had my son at age 30. So who knows what caused it, or what causes it in so many families. I’m sure the increase in diagnosed autism cases is directly related to the fact that many, many women are waiting ’til their mid- to late 30’s to have their first child, in addition to better awareness and screening for the condition regardless of mother’s age.
My daughter was born at home with a midwife. Not a lick of intervention during the labor. Yet she is autistic.
I do think we overuse obstetrical interventions in this country to the hilt. We do not need to hand out Pitocin like candy and give 1 in 3 women C-sections the way we do. But that is a whole nother book in and of itself that I could write.
Well, I would hope any reader would know that a problem pregnancy can cause many things aside from autism, many of which are much more serious than autism.
If everyone took to heart every thing written in news papers, pretty soon no one would have children. A woman can do every thing right during pregnancy and still have complications, and the baby can still have serious medical issues.
Why isn’t there more research done on autism? After all – children are the future.
Why is there no Company researching immunization that leave out all these horrible chemicals? It’s insane to put even minute amounts of chemicals in tiny, developing babies.
AND a study/research showing the percentage of vaccinated babies with autism versus nonvaccinated babies with autism would perhaps be very helpful????