AS and Caesarean Birth

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Both the mother and the child die.

Whaaaat? Nu uh.

I was a natural birth but premature (1 lb 12 oz) and I don't know what I have (AS is a possiblity I think) my mom and I are working on getting me diagnosed (and for AS specifically but just looked at in general).


I don't see how a baby could stay inside as the mother (even without a doctor) would push the baby out (I assume I don't know all the details of childbirth). If the baby was able to stay in I'd think that they would die however whether the mother would as well depends on her health and why the baby stayed in. I'm not a doctor this is just my opinion.

I was born the natural way, but forceps were used since the labor was too long for the doctor who became impatient.

Yep. The baby would die most certainly, because it needs to make the transition to breathing air and if the baby didn't come out pretty soon, the mother would get very sick and ultimately die. They'd take the baby out though. I know of someone whose baby died while in her belly at about 6 months pregnancy. She was able to take a few days before she went in, but she had to go to have the baby taken out as it didn't go out on its own. It was very sad.

That would be a very rare situation and would involve a very severe hormonal disorder or some kind of radical malpositioning. Babies can come out upside down and backwards, but they can not come out if they are side to side without surgery. Babies do move around and can move, but if there were some kind severe physical deformity or entanglement that got the baby truly stuck mom and baby would die.

Babies don't all take exactly the same amount of time to hatch, and there are signs that a pregnacy is going "too long" beyond the length of time. Technically a baby is not "overdue" until after 44 weeks. 40 weeks is an average. Babies are generally ready between 38 and 42 weeks, and that is considered "term." Two weeks either way on top of that can sometimes be completely normal. More than that either way and the baby is technically early or late. Some folks consider themselves "late" a day after 38 weeks and this kind of thinking can be detrimental. Of course there is almost always some wiggle room to when conception took place as the actual time involved from procreation to implantation can vary, so this means there is reasonable caution around the extreme ends of those dates.

My third child was born at approximately two days short of 44 weeks. He was quite active and there was no sign of any kind of trouble or overly long pregnancy. At birth he was covered in a thick layer of vernix, which is something associated with earlier births. Due to fertility issues conception had been monitored so the dates are quite accurate, give or take about 48 hours.


Ferdinand,

As a baby is born there are all sorts of amniotic fluids comeing out with the baby. It is continually produced and refreshed. It's the same stuff the baby has been marinating in for 9 mos. If you swallowed anything it would have been the same stuff you'd been swallowing all along.

I didn't answer about my own birth yet. I'm not in the spectrum as far as I know, but I do have ADHD and some spectrumy qualities.

I was born at 32 weeks coincidentally at the hospital that had the first NICU in the world. There was a massive rupture of membranes, possibly due to strep B which can weaken them. Labor didn't begin overnight so I was induced with pitocin, but it went quite quickly and easily. I was in an incubator for some months with tubes and stuff and that is associated with some kinds of neuro and developmental stuff, and could explain some of my sensory stuff etc.

My first three years were apparently quite traumatic as I had severe respiratory infections and then I needed some bits and pieces sorted out orthopedicly so I could walk. After that I was a very healthy kid. I also had unusually severe reflux which led to some nasty nutrition issues, that exacerbated whatever else was going on. I just remember the unlimited access to popsicles I had as a toddler as a positive thing to my little kid mind. Apparently I could keep them down, the cold helped my throat, and any calories were better than nothing.

I think my ADHD is just something that runs in the family. I'm sure my mom and grandmom had it, and I believe my bio-dad has diagnosed himself or been diagnosed with it (he's a doctor). I wonder if some of my AS like qualities come from some of that early childhood stuff, especially the touch thing. I can get to the point where I can't stand to be touched and the only thing that helps is getting into warm water with no noise. It only happens to me under extreme stress, and doesn't happen often.

I have a gigantic head. I couldn't wear kids hats when I was younger, and I can't wear women's hats now. I have to wear men's hats that are extended some in order for me to even wear one.

As for the original question, I was born in an emergency C-Section a little after midnight because I was choking on my own poo. I can't remember the exact medical term but I came out in a hurry the color of Shrek.

It's called meconium and this rarely happens outside of an induction or another unusual situation such as a labor stalled by mom's inactivity (strapped to a bed and unable to work with her labor) or severe malpositioning of the baby (often as the result of mom being unable to move freely). Some moms will try to take herbal remedies or castor oil to try to "speed things up" and that can be enough to cause the trouble. Usually the babies bowels are stimulated by the passage through the birth canal and meconium is passed shortly after birth and it's a healthy thing.

Glasson EJ, Bower C, Petterson B, de Klerk N, Chaney G, Hallmayer JF. Perinatal factors and the development of autism: a population study. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2004 Jun;61(6):618-27.

BACKGROUND: Autism is considered to have a genetic basis, although exposure to certain stimuli in the prenatal period has been implicated to be causal in some cases. Some investigations have shown an association with obstetric complications but findings have been inconsistent owing to differences in sampling and methods. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association of obstetric factors with autism spectrum disorders for a cohort of children, using obstetric data contained in a statutory database collected at the time of birth. DESIGN: Subjects born in Western Australia between 1980 and 1995 and diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder by 1999 were included as cases (n = 465). Siblings of the cases (n = 481) and a random population-based control group (n = 1313) were compared with the cases on obstetric information contained in the Maternal and Child Health Research Database of Western Australia. RESULTS: Compared with control subjects, cases had significantly older parents and were more likely to be firstborn. Case mothers had greater frequencies of threatened abortion, epidural caudal anesthesia use, labor induction, and a labor duration of less than 1 hour. Cases were more likely to have experienced fetal distress, been delivered by an elective or emergency cesarean section, and had an Apgar score of less than 6 at 1 minute. Cases with a diagnosis of autism had more complications than those with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified or Asperger syndrome. Nonaffected siblings of cases were more similar to cases than control subjects in their profile of complications. CONCLUSIONS: Autism is unlikely to be caused by a single obstetric factor. The increased prevalence of obstetric complications among autism cases is most likely due to the underlying genetic factors or an interaction of these factors with the environment.

Stuart,

That sounds reasonable. It'll take many more large studies to get a picture that is likely to be accurate, but that conclusion is supported by that data. There may be other disorders that have similar presentation to AS/ASDs that are more connected to birth circumstances, but it'll be ages before enough data is collected to really be confident. It might be that a case like mine where there is some early stress and trauma leading some similar symptoms but they really are different things.

as far as I know, natural.

Natural. But the tale is that my mother was asleep during my birth and that I was also asleep.

I would not normally post "latest research", but this new study is large - 400,000 Scottish school children - and supports the idea that the likelihood of Special Educational Needs (including autism / AS) increases with prematurity and caesareans, as well as after week 41. There were 18,000 children (4.9%) with SEN, 10% of which were atributable to preterm or late birth, but there is no breakdown of SEN within the paper.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10274047.stm


http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/inf ... rticles%29

Hmm... I saw this too. I don't doubt that there is a probably a statistically significant increase in special needs in premature births. There is an increased risk for many diseases if you are born before term.

I'm not a statistician by any accounts, but this study is about premature births, not C sections. The normal date for elective (planned) C-sections is 39 weeks. Bear in mind that term for vaginal births can range from 37 to 42 weeks and still be called normal. Any C-sections before 39 weeks are usually medically indicated i.e. things would be a lot worse for the baby and/or mum if pregnancy was allowed to continue until term.

C-sections are on the increase, but most are medically indicated, not a case of 'too posh to push' as the media suggests. The infant mortality has not suffered from this increase, and in fact is greatly decreased. Whether you could argue this is due to c-sections being performed when medially necessiated is a whole other debate.

According to this study, infants delivered at 37 to 39 weeks had an odds ratio of 1.16, 95%,(CI) 1.12–1.20. Which basically means the chance of having a learnign difficulty (again not quanified too well), is a 1.16: 1 ratio (or between 1.12 or 1.20). Forgive me if my maths is wrong (it might very well be), but that looks like the increased risk is up by only 0.5%. That's pretty negligible.

Also, bear in mind that this study is looking back retrospectively at the affected/non affected children's delivery. Case controlled trials are useful for throwing up hypotheses, but you cannot 'prove' a link or aetiological cause without randomised control trials, or at least a cohort study.

Basically, all this study seems to be saying is that the more premature your baby is, the more likely it is to have learning difficulties. This isn't exactly ground breaking, and has nothing to do with mode of delivery, but as usual the media have seized on it and warped it into things like 'Autism 'More Likely' in C-sections'

So, yeah, Caesarians look set to become the new vaccines...

I can't imagine why any woman would want a Caesarean out of personal choice. I know I wouldn't want my stomach cut open.