New research, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, has found “the first clear link” between babies who grow to above average size and birth and the risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Following a study of more than 40,000 children’s health records in Sweden, a team of researchers from The University of Manchester, confirmed what earlier research concluded: that premature and poorly grown, low weight babies appear more susceptible to the condition.

Professor Kathryn Abel, from the University of Manchester’s Centre for Women’s Mental Health and Institute of Brain, Behaviour and Mental Health, who led the research said, “The processes that leads to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) probably begin during fetal life; signs of the disorder can occur as early as three years of age. Fetal growth is influenced by genetic and non-genetic factors. A detailed understanding of how fetal growth is controlled and the ways in which it is associated with ASD are therefore important if we are to advance the search for cures.”

Researchers involved in the study believe that the Autism Spectrum Disorder has origins in both genetic and environmental causes. For the study, researchers looked at the data collected by the Stockholm Youth Cohort in Sweden, where early ultrasound data provides detailed weights of a baby’s progression in pregnancies. Following their birth, infants and children also take part in a structured clinical assessment of their social, language, motor and cognitive abilities.

The cohort contained records of 589,114 children ages 0-17 in Sweden between 2001 and 2007. Certain data was not necessary to the study and was removed: children too young for an ASD diagnosis, adopted children and non-Sweish or Stockholm residents, children not born in Sweden and twins. From the data that remained, researchers found 4,237 young people with autism and 36,588 children who did not have the condition. These children acted as the control group.

From the study, researchers found that bigger babies born weighing over 9 lbs. 14 oz. showed a higher incidence of autism, as did smaller infants born weighing less than 5.5 lbs. A baby who had poor fetal growth during pregnancy would have a 63% greater risk of developing autism compared to “normally” growing babies and a baby who was larger at birth would have a 60% greater risk than “normally” growing babies. This effect, researchers found, was independent of whether or not the baby was born pre- or post-term.

Abel said, “To our knowledge, this is the first large prospective population-based study to describe the association between the degree of deviance in fetal growth from the normal average in a population of children and risk of ASD with and without intellectual disability. We have shown for the first time categorically that abnormal fetal growth in both directions increases risk of autism spectrum disorder.” Adding that she and her team of researchers “think that this increase in risk associated with extreme abnormal growth of the fetus shows that something is going wrong during development, possibly with the function of the placenta.”

“Anything which encourages abnormalities of development and growth is likely to also affect development of the baby’s brain,” Abel said of the research, noting that the “risk appeared particularly high in those babies where they were growing poorly and continued in utero until after 40 weeks. This may be because these infants were exposed the longest to unhealthy conditions within the mother’s womb.”

But just because babies may grow in utero at different rates compared to “normally developing” fetuses, it does not mean they will be diagnosed with the Autism Spectrum Disorder. What the research finds is that these growth differences are linked with more instances of of the condition. More than anything, the research is intended to raise awareness and work closer to finding a cure than it is to label below or above average birth weight babies with the autism diagnosis. Abel is the first to recognize that because a link appears it does not rule out the need for further research to explain the how and why‘s that so many parents and researchers have.

She said, “We now need more research into fetal growth, how it is controlled by the placenta and how this affects how the brain develops,” noting that one key place to start researching is, “maternal condition and healthy growth.”

Do you think baby’s birth weight could be a factor that leads to the ASD diagnosis?

Plus, more from The Bump:

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This is the fourth and final installment of Danica’s series on her son’s Autism diagnosis. In her first post, The Moment Autism Changed Everything, she shares how the autism diagnosis changed her family’s world. Her second post, Avoiding the Autism Diagnosis: Ignorance Is Not Bliss, takes us through coping with the diagnosis and in her third post, Yes, My Son Is Autistic But No, He’s Not ‘Rain Main’,  Danica details her son’s “super” powers. She is a stay at home mom of 3 who spends most of her time homeschooling and cleaning up the path of destruction her autistic son leaves. You can follow his antics at http://laffytaffyandwine.blogspot.com/.

Laughter and perspective. These are two of my favorite words that go hand in hand and have been essential on this journey. I’ll admit that there are times I lose my perspective and I don’t find my situation all that humorous! But as I get older, those times are fewer and farther between. In the trenches of autism it can be easy to lose your perspective and sense of humor because sometimes it feels like the only thing you’re doing is handling crisis after crisis. When I’ve felt that way and people told me “it gets easier,” I could have choked them. Please don’t kill the messenger, but for those of you who are in the thick of this and can’t find humor in your situation, it does get easier.

Perspective.

When I think my world is ending and my circumstances unbearable for one more moment, I remind myself (and my kids) that there’s always someone out there that has it worse than we do. There are parents who are dealing with really tough stuff with their kids. I don’t want to minimize what we’re going through, but knowing that this world is so much bigger than only us makes me feel a little better. I’ve been through some pretty heartbreaking situations recently and despite those circumstances, there are people out there who have it much worse than I do. I park on this thought, pray for those families and am thankful for what I have.

Laughter.

When Aaron does something outrageous (which happens on a near daily basis), I have a choice. I can let it be the end of the world, or I can find the humor in it and possibly even celebrate a new skill he’s acquired. Most of the time I laugh and think, “seriously, you did NOT just do that!” If he’s being naughty then, of course, I don’t laugh (most of the time) because I do have to discourage the behavior. I generally don’t like to clean up the messes he makes, but after it’s all over, I have a story to tell. I have sympathy from strangers and I can be the perspective for others (“my life may suck, but at least it’s not as bad as Danica’s”). I’ve bought more shampoo, hand soap and shaving cream in one year than most people buy in their lifetime. I’ve had to take the toilet off after he’s flushed two $400 tracking bracelets (never found them). I’ve had to hide the plunger because he kept sucking on it. I’ve walked into church embarrassed with Aaron in dirty, smelly, food smeared clothes because he asked me to wear a particular shirt (a huge feat for a mostly nonverbal kiddo).

Keeping perspective and finding the humor in the crazy things Aaron does keeps my attitude in check and quite honestly it’s a lot more fun to camp out there than in a puddle of tears.

Plus more from The Bump:

Autism: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Is This the Earliest Sign of Autism?

Baby Milestones: What Baby Will Do When

This is the third installment of Danica’s four-part series on her son’s Autism diagnosis. In her first post, The Moment Autism Changed Everything, she shares how her son’s diagnosis changed her family’s world. Her second post, Avoiding the Autism Diagnosis: Ignorance Is Not Bliss, takes us through coping with her son’s diagnosis. Danica is a stay at home mom of 3 who spends most of her time homeschooling and cleaning up the path of destruction her autistic son leaves. You can follow his antics at http://laffytaffyandwine.blogspot.com/.

Here’s one thing that’s good about autism in 2013 — fewer and fewer people have seen the movie Rain Man. Seriously, people. In the “early days” of our journey, everyone associated autism with Rain Man. I loved the question, “So what super talent does your son have, you know, like Rain Man?” What? Super talent? Oh, do you mean is he a savant (a person with a mental disability that is a prodigy in some way, like in math or music)?

While my son doesn’t have a super talent in math or music, he does have a super talent in another area… stealthy destruction. I don’t have enough space, and you don’t have enough time, for me to tell you all of the things Aaron has done, but recently Aaron exercised his savant skills. Like I said, Aaron is stealthy. He’s also mostly non-verbal. If he knows you aren’t paying attention, he will take advantage of that and find a way to ruin your stuff!  One night, my husband, two kids and I were playing Sorry, and Aaron was playing on the computer (or so we thought). I heard the sound of running water, which is never good. I ran upstairs to find Aaron, wearing my brand new (as in I wore it for 2 hours that day) sweater sitting in a bathtub full of bubbles. If he had used regular old bubble bath, that would have been fine. But no. He used 4 Costco sized bottles of shampoo & conditioner, 2 bottles of body wash, 3 cans of shaving cream, and 1/2 of a gallon of vinegar. This happened in just a matter of minutes — a couple of minutes!

I have a mantra that I repeat over and over to myself when something like this happen: “it’s only money”. I repeated my mantra over and over and over while I got him out of the tub and into the shower. As the tub was draining, my other two kids started laughing. The bubbles from the bathtub had filled up the downstairs toilet and overflowed into the hallway. Perfect. At least now my floors would be clean, and I wouldn’t be the one doing it! I got Aaron showered and off to bed so he couldn’t ruin anything else that night. When I went to wash my new sweater I noticed that he cut the tag off of the neck, putting two large holes in it. It’s only money. It’s only money. It’s only money. Deep breath, glass of wine, and another notch on my guess-what-Aaron-did-this-time story belt.

It’s been years since I’ve been asked if Aaron has any savant powers, but if someone were to ask me today, I would give a resounding yes. That boy has some “super talent”!

Stay tuned next week to read Danica’s next post!

Plus more from The Bump:

Autism: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Is This the Earliest Sign of Autism?

Baby Milestones: What Baby Will Do When

This is the second installment of Danica’s four-part series on her son’s Autism diagnosis. In her first post, The Moment Autism Changed Everything, she shares how her son’s diagnosis changed her family’s world. Danica is a stay at home mom of 3 who spends most of her time homeschooling and cleaning up the path of destruction her autistic son leaves. You can follow his antics at http://laffytaffyandwine.blogspot.com/.  

Denial is one of parents’ biggest enemies. No one really wants to think or admit their precious child might have a “problem”. I have run into numerous parents who have kids with obvious developmental delays, and they aren’t willing to admit it. In fact, dads seem to have the highest rate of denial. I speak from experience, because when the rubber met the road with my own son, even though we had suspicions for months, my husband took longer to come around to the reality than I did.

The problem with denial is you’re actually making your life harder in the long run. I saw this played out very clearly between two friends who had children with speech delays.  Friend #1 had a son that wasn’t talking at 3 years old. He would cry, whine, and scream to get what he wanted. In hindsight, I realize that he was frustrated that he couldn’t communicate his needs with his words, so he communicated the only way he knew how. The parents never admitted that he may actually be speech delayed and chalked it up to him being a late talker. When he finally did start talking, his brain worked faster than his mouth so it was a lot of work and frustration to get what was in his head out of his mouth. This boy is now 12 years old. He’s had a harder time learning than most kids his age, and while he’s almost to grade level, it’s taken years of hard work to get him there. In my not-so-professional opinion, I believe that if he had speech therapy earlier, he would have had an easier time with communication and learning.

Friend #2 was worried about her two and a half year old son’s language. I told her to get an evaluation, but Friend #1 told her that he was a late talker and it would be fine. Friend #2 took my advice, got an evaluation, and her son did qualify for speech services. He was in speech therapy for a year, and by the end of it he wasn’t frustrated, his language was age appropriate, and he is currently excelling in third grade. Two similar situations with two very different outcomes.

Let me bring this back to autism. Experts agree that early intervention is key to making the biggest impact on a child with autism. That means the clock is ticking — the sooner your child gets help, the better his chances are. Early intervention does not guarantee “recovery” like I thought it did when I first started on this journey, but early intervention does help and can give a child the tools to be indistinguishable from their peers. The reality is, if your child is exhibiting autistic symptoms and you keep your head in the sand, you’re wasting precious time. As parents we would move mountains for our kids. Sometimes the biggest mountain we have to move is our own pride.

Stay tuned next week to read Danica’s next post!

Plus more from The Bump:

Autism: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Is This the Earliest Sign of Autism?

Baby Milestones: What Baby Will Do When

This blog post was written by Danica, a stay at home mom of 3 who spends most of her time homeschooling and cleaning up the path of destruction her autistic son leaves. You can follow his antics at http://laffytaffyandwine.blogspot.com/.

My world “officially” changed on February 25, 2003, when my husband and I sat at a huge table with a team of professionals I had no idea existed before — speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and physical therapists. I can’t remember how many there were, or most of that day for that matter. What I do remember is the team leader saying, “Based on the information you’ve given us, our observations and standard testing, Aaron fits the qualifications for Autism Spectrum Disorder.” As much as I thought I was prepared for what they were going to tell me, it still knocked the wind out of me. In the days that followed, I realized that my journey into the world of autism actually began long before February 25^th.

When Aaron was eight months old, before I even knew what autism was, I was sitting at the dentist’s office reading a Newsweek article about three different families who had children with autism. My son was crawling at my feet, and I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “Thank you God that you gave me three healthy kids. There is no way I could raise a child like that.”  A short time later, I was introduced to our neighbor who had a seven year old son with severe autism. I was fascinated, but all of my questions to his mother were met with so much pain she couldn’t even talk about it. Little did I know this boy would be the example I would use to see the path that my son would have, and his mother would be the example I would think about when others asked me questions about autism. But at the time, Aaron was typically developing. He had words, eye contact, wasn’t picky about food, and he was the happiest out of all my kids.

Slowly, however, we lost him. When he started walking on his tiptoes and flapping his hands we would joke about it, but I did become concerned. I took him to our pediatrician when he was sick and told him I thought Aaron might have autism. He said no way, and I was greatly relieved. My relief didn’t last long though, when three months later I toted my four year-old, three year-old, and two-year old Aaron to his well-child checkup. I NEVER took all three kids to the doctor, because that would be crazy, but that day I did. It turns out having my other two kiddos with me would be a buffer to ease the news I was going to get. When the pediatrician gave me a referral for an evaluation for autism I protested, “I was just here and you told me he didn’t have autism.” How could things have changed so quickly?

Two days after my baby turned two, I started down a path that I never asked for. My hopes and dreams for my son were shattered. I needed to fix him, cure him, and make him better. I needed to make him “normal”.

When I said my world “officially” changed on February 25th, that was only partially true. What really changed on that blurry day in February was my perspective. My best friend imparted words of wisdom after Aaron’s diagnosis that have stuck with me to this day – “This doesn’t change who Aaron is.”  She was right. My world really didn’t change.  It was still the same as it was the day before–it was just about to get a little crazier.

Stay tuned next week to read Danica’s next post!

Plus more from The Bump:

Autism: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Is This the Earliest Sign of Autism?

Baby Milestones: What Baby Will Do When

This guest post was written by The Bump executive editor Rebecca Dolgin.

In case you missed it, last week a study published in Nature linked a father’s age to autism, schizophrenia and other diseases. According to the piece, fathers passed on four times as many genetic mutations as mothers.

This is bad news. But, from the press coverage it got last week, you’d think this was the best thing to happen to women over 35 who want to have kids. Here’s what CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield had to say, “I had my babies at 38 and 39 and I was terrified,” she said on air. “Honey, you’re in the conversation now. It’s not just me.” I don’t mean to single her out — there were tons of comments just like hers. It seems like we (well, by “we” I mean “ women” in general) almost seem happy about this report. Suddenly someone else can be blamed. Has it really gotten this bad?

I think this is really sad. And misses the whole point. Am I the only one who feels this way?

Post a comment here or tweet me @rebdolgin.

Plus, more from The Bump:

Autism: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Prepare Your Health History

Should I Get Genetic Testing?

Here’s another reason to watch your nutrition during pregnancy: Moms who have diabetes or are overweight are more likely to have a child with autism. A new study published in Pediatrics by researchers affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute found that moms who were obese were one to two-thirds more likely to have a child with autism and twice as likely to have a child with another developmental disorder. Researchers also found that autistic children of women who were diabetic had greater developmental problems, than autistic children born to moms without metabolic issues. Even kids without autism were negatively affected by mom’s metabolic conditions – they had mild development problems.

The study followed 1,004 moms and their babies between 24 and 60 months old. 517 of them had autism, 172 children had development disorders and 315 of them had no developmental problems. The researchers looked at demographic and medical information of the participants. The moms and babies were divided into three groups – children with autism, children with another developmental disability and children with normal development. It was found that 29 percent of children with autism and 35 percent of children with developmental disorders had moms with a metabolic or a diabetes condition, while 19 percent of children with no developmental problems had mothers who were obese or diabetic.

Researchers believe that obesity and diabetes in mothers are linked to autism in children because high glucose levels for mom can expose baby to high levels of insulin and make the fetus produce more insulin. Also, elevated insulin production requires a lot more oxygen, which could have caused a decreased oxygen supply for baby. Low levels of oxygen and fetal iron deficiency caused by diabetes can affect baby’s brain development in the womb.

What do you think of this study? What are you doing to eat better during pregnancy?

It’s Autism Awareness Month, and there’s a lot that’s unknown about autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), so we’ve been hearing quite a bit about the latest studies on the subject. Here’s the latest scoop on some things that could increase a child’s risk of having an ASD or having more severe ASD symptoms.

Dad’s Age

Researchers have been unable to pinpoint genetic causes of ASD, but they do believe they’re a factor. One new study suggests that the answer could be linked to the child’s father’s age. Several teams, including researchers at the Harvard/MIT Broad Institute, Yale University and the University of Washington worked together to analyze the DNA of 549 families with at least one family member with autism. They found that certain genetic material could become mutated as they’re passed along to a child — about 14 percent of the people with autism has suspected mutations, which is about five times the normal rate. They found that the mutations can harm certain pathways in the brain, causing ASD symptoms. They also found that the number of those mutations increased with the father’s age.

Being born Preterm or Post-term

Previous studies have suggested that preemies have higher rates of autism, but a new study from Michigan State University looks at post-term babies too. The study, which was published in the Journal of Autism and Development Disorders looked at data on nearly 4,200 mothers who had autistic children ages four through 21. The moms filled out questionnaires on their children’s autism symptoms, and the researchers found that very preterm (born before 34 weeks gestation), preterm (34 to 37 weeks) and post-term (born after 42 weeks) autistic children had significantly higher screening scores for autism spectrum disorder than autistic children born full term (between 37 and 42) weeks. In other words, their symptoms were more severe if they were born before or after the full-term range.

“We think about autism being caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors,” said researcher Tammy Movsas in a press release. “With preterm and post-term babies, there is something underlying that is altering the genetic expression of autism.”

More research needs to be done on both fronts, but we’re hoping these studies help scientists hone in on the true causes of autism.

Plus, more from The Bump:

Autism Rate Increases to 1 in 88 Kids

Autism: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Is This the Earliest Sign of Autism?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a new study which estimates that 1 in 88 children in the U.S. are identified with having an austim spectrum disorder, up 23% in 8 year olds since the last report in 2009. The study looked at data from 14 communities — findings ranged from 1 in 210 children in Alabama to 1 in 47 children in Utah. And according to the report, the largest increases in cases were among Hispanic and African American children.

CDC director, Thomas Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., said in a press release, “One thing the data tells us with certainty – there are more children and families that need help. We must continue to track autism spectrum disorders because this is the information communities need to guide improvements in services to help children.”

Researchers found that more children are being diagnosed by three years old — an increase from 12 percent for children born in 1994 to 18 percent for children born in 2000. 40 percent of children in the current study weren’t diagnosed until four years old.

The CDC recommends that parents monitor their child’s behavior and act quickly whenever there is a concern about their baby’s development – by talking to your child’s pediatrician, calling a local early intervention program for assessment and keeping in mind that parents don’t need an official diagnosis to access help.

What do you think of these new statistics?