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New study points to duration between pregnancies as a potential risk factor for
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Posted by Sylvia on Saturday, February 05, 2011 (04:42:38)
AWARES
NEW YORK, USA: Children born within one year of an older sibling may be three times more likely to be diagnosed with autism, according to a new study in the February 2011 issue of Pediatrics.
The study calls attention to interpregnancy interval (IPI), the duration between pregnancies, as a potential risk factor for autism. In the past, much focus has been on environmental triggers of autism such as vaccines as opposed to maternal physiological triggers such as the womb environment.
If the new findings are confirmed and proven to be related to maternal depletion of key nutrients such as folate, it may be possible to prevent autism with nutritional supplements, the study authors and autism experts suggest.
The latest statistics from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show that one in 110 children in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder. This is the umbrella term for a group of developmental disorders that can range from mild to severe and that often affect social interaction and communication skills. According to information in the new study, the proportion of births occurring within two years of an earlier birth increased from 11 per cent to 18 per cent between 1995 and 2002.
Researchers analysed autism risk among more than 660,000 second-born children born in California from 1992 to 2002. Those children who were conceived within one year of an older sibling were more than three times as likely to be diagnosed with autism when compared to peers who were conceived more than three years after the birth of an older sibling.
Children conceived 12 to 23 months after an older sibling were nearly two times more likely to be diagnosed with autism; children conceived two years to 35 months following an older sibling were one and a quarter times more likely to be diagnosed with autism, the study showed.
The findings held even after researchers took into account other factors that may be related to closely timed pregnancies, such as maternal age and maternal education.
“The robustness of the findings was really shocking,” says the study author, Dr Peter Bearman, the Jonathan Cole Professor of the Social Sciences at Columbia University in New York City.
Still many questions remain, including exactly how closely spaced pregnancies may affect autism risk, Dr Bearman says. “It could be a biological factor, such as maternal depletion of nutrients like folate, or another process that hasn’t been described or discovered yet,” Dr Bearman says. “If the mechanism is depletion of nutrients like folate, then women can make sure to take supplements of it, and if it is something else, it also may be readily modifiable.”
It also could just be that parents with closely spaced kids are more attuned to normal child development, he says. “Parents who have had closely spaced children are more aware of developmental dynamics and more likely to seek help if the child is not developing on the right trajectory,” he says.
“Watch the science,” he says. “This is the first study, but there is a lot more work to be done.”
(Source: WebMD, Janauary 10, 2011)
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Mental health authorities 'no help to autistic teens'
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Posted by sylvia on Monday, August 03, 2009 (17:44:41)
Adelaidenow By ANDREW DOWDELL
SUICIDAL autistic teens are locked up in detention centres or released unsupervised because the system does not regard them as mentally disabled, a court has heard.
Coroner Mark Johns today opened an inquest into the hanging death of 18-year old Asperger's Syndrome sufferer Rowan Wheaton, who died at a residential care facility in April, 2006.
His father, Simon Wheaton, yesterday told the court he was staggered to find out that the health system did not regard autism sufferers as disabled.
"In South Australia if you are only diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder you are not regarded as having a mental disability and therefore you are excluded from funding and access to organisations," Mr Wheaton said.
Mr Wheaton said the family waged a lengthy and frustrating battle to obtain care for their son as his obsessive and suicidal behaviour worsened in early 2005.
"We were worried for Rowan's own safety and for the safety of others ... I didn't want to see another Port Arthur massacre situation occurring," Mr Wheaton said.
"We took him to Flinders Medical Centre because we weren't aware of any facility for autistic people in this state and it turned out we were right, there was none," he said.
After a lengthy battle with red tape, the Wheatons negotiated a spot for their son in a secure ward at the Women's and Children's Hospital - but said staff were resentful about his presence.
"We were threatened on more than one occasion that Rowan would be thrown out on the street if we didn't come and pick him up," Mr Wheaton said.
"It was a blackmail situation, but we were aware of other situations where they actually did it. It wasn't just a bluff."
Mr Wheaton said he met numerous other families who had suffered "terrible experiences" in trying to get help.
"Other parents had had their children placed into juvenile detention, not because they should have been there but because there was nowhere else to go," Mr Wheaton said.
In late 2005, Rowan was admitted to a residential care facility at Christies Beach, run by an organisation known as Southern Youth Junction.
The teenager hanged himself with a sock at the home on April 21, 2006, after his release from six weeks on suicide watch in the Flinders Medical Centre.
Mr Wheaton said he had been worried that the single carer employed at the home would not be able to properly monitor his son.
"To this day, I regret being too worn out to have kicked up sufficient fuss to have something done before it was too late," Mr Wheaton said.
Mr Wheaton said carers for autistic people were underpaid and often worked outside hours to help their clients.
The inquest is continuing.
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Health : Legislation would extend medical coverage to more autism treatments
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Posted by Sylvia on Saturday, January 27, 2007 (17:55:44)
Charlotte Biz Journals
January 2007
Health insurers in New York would be forced to pay for additional medical and other health therapies to treat autistic children under legislation filed Tuesday.
State Assemblyman Peter Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, said insurers continue to be reluctant to cover a wide range of treatments that have shown some promise for autistic children. About 1 in 166 children are now diagnosed with some autism-related health condition.
People with autism do not develop properly emotionally or behaviorally. There is no cure for the condition.
Under Rivera's legislation, a panel of experts from the state departments of mental health and health would compile a list annually of treatment methods and their rates of success. Those that have proven to be successful would be added annually to the state insurance department's list of treatments that would have to be covered in New York.
Wendy Harnisher of the Capital District Biomedical Support Group for Autism Spectrum Disorders said she has found people everywhere who have had to choose between bankruptcy and losing their homes or getting the best available treatment for people with autism.
Pamela Finch of the Employer Alliance for Affordable Health Care said about 100 bills are filed each year in the New York state Legislature adding health insurance coverage mandates in the state. She said that her group is not opposed to providing adequate health care coverage, but she said the overall costs of those mandates have to be better tracked and studied.
The Employer Alliance for Affordable Health Care has been lobbying for years for the establishment of an independent commission to appraise the cost and effectiveness of the health care mandates imposed on insurers and employers in New York state.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he wants all uninsured New Yorkers to get coverage, starting with uninsured children, but that state leaders also have to be wary of the unaffordability of health care mandates.
Rivera is chairman of the mental health committee in the Assembly.
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Health : A stress-free pregnancy can deliver a popular child
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Posted by sylvia on Thursday, March 23, 2006 (17:18:48)
Daily Mail
By Tahira Yaqoob
All mothers-to-be wonder what kind of adult their baby will become.
Will their child grow into a sociable creature, for instance, bonding easily with others? Or will he or she struggle to make friends?
Scientists now believe they have discovered the key to ensuring a child's success in forming relationships - their mother must avoid stress while pregnant.
Experts think hormones produced by pregnant women have a direct impact on their children's future ability to socialise, communicate and develop language skills.
Stressed mothers-to-be produce more of the male hormone testosterone, thought to be responsible for poor people and communication skills and even the condition autism.
So the secret to having a more sociable baby is to relax during pregnancy, say researchers.
The impact of stress on babies in the womb from as early as 13 weeks is thought to be so great it can lead to children being slower at picking up language skills, finding it harder to form relationships and being more inclined to develop obsessional traits.
In the extreme, they could show symptoms of autism, a neurological condition characterised by a difficulty in developing relationships and being obsessed with routine.
Foetuses produce testosterone naturally but are also affected by levels of the hormone in the surrounding amniotic fluid which come from the mother.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of Cambridge University's autism research centre, revealed his findings yesterday at a conference in London examining whether women made better leaders.
His team studied 100 children, from early in the womb to the age of seven, to see how testosterone levels have affected their development.
They found that even 24 hours after being born, boys - who have up to ten times as much testosterone as girls - were showing less interest in people and more interest in mechanical objects than females.
At 12 months, babies with higher levels of the hormone in the womb had poor eye contact with their parents.
And at 18 months, children with high pre-natal testosterone could not talk or had a limited vocabulary while other youngsters spoke up to 600 words.
When they started school, children with higher levels were finding it more difficult to socialise.
Professor Baron-Cohen said while testosterone was partly genetic, it was also present in fluctuating amounts in the amniotic fluid.
He added: "The mother's level of stress is a factor in the testosterone level and makes it go up. We do not know what percentage of that level is genetic.
"What we do know is that the higher the level in the womb, the slower children are at making eye contact and developing language.
"Less testosterone means better human relationships. The differences may become even clearer as the children in our study get older."
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Health : Controversy over vitamin jab for autism
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Posted by sylvia on Saturday, December 17, 2005 (14:01:38)
Sunday Herald October 2005
By Rachelle Money
A Controversial vitamin injection claimed to help autistic children recover is to be promoted in Scotland by its American developer.
Dr James Neubrander, who will discuss the injection at a conference on autism in Edin burgh this week, has a private clinic in New Jersey where he says he has given more than 75,000 shots of methyl cobalamin B12 since May 2002, with, he claims, 94% of children showing improvement.
Methylcobalamin B12 is a type of vitamin B12 produced naturally by bacteria in the colon and then absorbed. Some scientists believe that people with autism are unable to absorb this material.
Neubrander said one injection is given every three days and the effects can be seen within five weeks. “My kids can lose their diagnosis [as autistic] within a year and a half to two and a half years and be in a normal classroom where nobody would know they had autism. When they stop the shots they regress in the same manner a diabetic who stops taking insulin would regress.
“When we first see these kids they can’t talk and now they are totally recovered. This is to the autism world what antibiotics was to the modern world.â€
However, he points out that he is not suggesting his injection is the only treatment.
“I believe in other treatments, like behavioural therapy and speech and language therapy and I tell my patients to continue with them.â€
Some UK doctors are already experimenting with the treatment, which is currently undergoing clinical trials in the US.
Dr Jean Monro, medical director of Breakspear Hospital in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, said the private hospital has been using the injections on autistic children for several months. She said: “I saw one boy in his early teens who, from having been a chap who couldn’t even sit down, can now co-operate with people. We’ve also not found any side-effects yet.â€
But other medics are sceptical. Dr Iain McClure, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist with NHS Argyll and Clyde, is scathing of Neubrander’s claims.
“Dr Neubrander’s website claims his study provides ‘scientific validation for use of methyl B12’ in autism. I feel this cannot be scientifically justified,†he said.
Neubrander’s paper, published last year, reports findings from a study which compared 20 autistic children to 33 healthy children .
But McClure said: “Crucially, the study does not demonstrate any scientific evidence of clinical improvement in the autistic profile of children following these injections.â€
However, a Hampshire mother whose seven-year-old son Alex has been having the injections – bought from a doctor in Chicago – since last November, claimed to have seen improvements. Christina Wood said: “We started to see more language, that’s been the biggest thing. He’d stutter at the start of a sentence but not anymore.â€
A spokesman for the National Autistic Society (NAS) said many interventions for the complex condition had been developed, with various claims of success. “An intervention that may help one individual may not be effective for another . It would not be appropriate for the NAS to recommend any one practice or therapy.â€
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