Birth Timing Influences Autism?

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A researcher is claiming that autism is more common in babies born less than two years after the previous sibling. This study excluded diagnoses of Asperger's and PPD-NOS, only included classic autism.

If so then it claims this could contribute to the recent increase in autism diagnoses. It also claims that closely spaced birth are becoming more common than in past years. It claims that this is due to two reasons. One, married couples are delaying the first pregnancy longer than past times and then trying to cram in multiple babies to make up for lost time. Secondly, due to an increase in irresponsonsible behaviors that lead to "unplanned" pregnancies (though I'm not sure how a pregnancy can be unplanned if you intentionally do the thing that causes pregnancies).

Full story here.

they might have found an association but there doesn't even appear to be a suggestion as to what the causation might be. Strikes me that there's quite a leap from finding that autism rates are higher where there is a lesser time between pregnancies to "Close birth spacing may put a second-born child at higher risk for autism"

WHY would people CRAM? I mean do families REALLY PUSH to have 3+ kids?

BTW I knew a family with 9 kids! The first was born YEARS before the others. The rest were born rather quickly. I believe there were 8 pregnancies, as 2 were twins. BTW most were boys, the twins were boys, and the first one was a girl. NONE appeared autistic.

Unplanned is yet ANOTHER word people liked and misappropriated. If you have a kid, that you didn't want to have, then it is called unplanned. Never mind that you went through an act that often has at least a 3% chance of pregnancy even WITH "birth control". Condoms are 97% reliable. EVEN the PILL has failed more than a few times. Vasectomies can fail. And a woman generally only has about a 16% chance of getting pregnant, if she has sex every day, without birth control.

It is amazing how people can have unprotected sex, get pregnant, and say "But it was ONLY ONE time!". One time is ALL it takes. It is the time of the month that makes it less likely, but THAT can change too.

The researcher is definitely not calling this the cause of autism. He was careful to note that this is likely just one of many factors, and that the birth timing itself might not be the root issue. For example, perhaps the mother's body has lost certain nutrients from the last pregnancy and needs two years to recover without a change in diet. Or maybe it's a post-pregnancy hormonal thing. He encouraged mothers not to change anything in their lives until more research is done. Certainly a very different style of message than that vaccine fraud with his Chicken Little message.

I thought this was going to be about astrology.

My son is an only child and he is on the spectrum. I did have him when I was 40 though. I have often wondered if this had anything to do with it. He is diagnosed as PDD-NOS.

I'm a first born, so it doesn't include me.

I had my children fairly close together. All three of them are on the spectrum.

My kids are 3 years apart. I had no problems during pregnancy with my youngest who is a girl on the spctrum, I did have anemia with my oldest son who is not on the spectrum. So...... I think these studies some times confuse more then help.

It's important to realize that this sort of thing is a trend, not an absolute, so it will have plenty of exceptions. It's definitely useless for looking at an individual case. What's useful about it is that it points to a cause (though not necessarily the cause in case there are multiple causes).

For example, assume that it has to do with post-pregnancy hormones. Maybe some women have that hormonal state even with the first born and others even 5 years after the first pregnancy, and those mothers will have births contrary to the aforementioned trend. But that trend helps researchers narrow their investigation to what changes usually occur in a mother post-pregnancy that are usually reverted after a couple years. So I see it as useful for researchers, but useless for anyone else.