Autism from brain injury at birth?

[nyxjord]

Would having having a possible brain injury at birth be related to Aspergers? My story: I was born two weeks late and my head was too large for the birth canal. I had a seizure and had to be put on phenobarbital for the first year and a half of my life. My older brother has told me that the doctors expected me to be nothing more than an unresponsive vegetable for the rest of my life. This turned out to not be the case.. Thanks to speech therapy and other classes, I have turned out to seem quite normal to most people.
My question is: could the seizure I had at birth be related to my autism? Or even the fact that my mother drank and did drugs while she was pregnant with me? I'm just wondering how it is that I am the only person in my entire family to have this- it almost seems like a fluke and like I'm an outlier. (No offense to anyone and sorry if my language or anything offends you.. Just trying to put this into words is difficult). Anyway, I've heard that autism could be caused in part by brain injury at birth or in the womb, which reminded me of my own history. Thought someone more knowledgeable might be able to help?
And if you think that the two things (seizure at birth /late arrival and autism) have absolutely no correlation at all, please feel free to tell me that too. I'm just looking to see if there is anything at all that might be relating these two things.

 

[On the Inside]

Can't say for certain. Your's is an interesting tale, I'm sorry you've had such struggles.

My story includes several seizures (grand mal) in childhood through young adulthood, the last one was about 23 years ago (I'm in my late forties). I had lots of tests and nothing was ever conclusive, ie. no epilepsy. I was put on phenobarbital for a short time when I had a seizure at 13, but once the testing showed no evidence of epilepsy and I had no further seizures, they discontinued the prescription. I had my last seizure at 25, and had another round of testing, as well as an MRI and CT brain scan. Once again inconclusive, but the imaging showed that my hippo-campus was smaller than usual, a little misshaped. They did say that it was an in-utero developmental abnormality. Once again, the doctors weren't willing to say that this was a conclusive cause in any way, but a possible contributor. This was before being diagnosed with HFA.

I haven't had a seizure since then, though sometimes I do feel like one might be coming on, but then it subsides. It's just a funny feeling I get once in a while. This has led me to believe that they might have been brought on by metabolic issues, along with the structural abnormality in the hippo-campus. I participate in endurance sports, so blood sugar and electrolyte levels can fluctuate if I don't watch my diet.

No one else in my family has seizure disorders, and there is no other family history, but I do suspect some of my family members are Aspies. (Grand father, uncle, one sister, maybe my mom.)

 

[Tom]

In truth I have not really investigated this type of cause. That said I believe I have read it in passing in studies, difficulties at birth (cord around neck, breech births, etc) are believed to be causes as they have higher incident rates of autism. Me and my son who are HFA both had such incidents at birth. I was a breech with cord around neck - my son came out with cord around neck, blue and not breathing for short duration. My brother in law has more severe autism but is still close to HFA. His mother had a unrecognized toxic condition during pregnancy. One thread on the subject on WP had a very large response of people who had birthing/during pregnancy incidents.

There has so far no one 'smoking gun' been found as the cause of autism. Instead there are many things found that increase your chances of ending up with it.

 

[garnetflower13]

I know that I was oxygen deprived shortly after birth, and had to be given it to breathe. I was also told that my skin had turned blue briefly because of it. I now wonder if that could have caused the autism as well! I have one younger sister who was diagnosed with it, though.

 

[On the Inside]

I know what you mean by the outlier feeling. While no one else in my family has been diagnosed, or at least they're not telling, my mom and my siblings all showed signs of Asperger's. Trouble with socializing, avoidant behavior, two of my sisters can really be off the wall in their own world, even to me. Yet they all proceed as if everything is normal, no problems here.

Not to disparage, but my siblings are all female, and all but one have had the good fortune to get into relationships that have allowed them to carry on in their own weird ways. I love them dearly, but they are not normal.

 

[Kari Suttle]

I have wondered the same thing, if difficult births (and incidents related) can cause autism. Apparently with me there was an issue that caused them to have to induce my mom not too far into the pregnancy - i dont remember how many weeks she was pregnant, just that for the time it was very early. Labor with me was very long and apparently me and my mom both nearly died it was that bad. I was born with a lot of issues i had to have surgery for so i spent a lot of my first year in the hospital. I dont remember if this specific tidbit is true or not, but i think my mom said i nearly died once, like my heart stopped or almost did or something like that...like i said i dont remember if she actually said that or if she even used those words or what. But basically from before i was even born i wasn't supposed to have survived yet i did. They said i'd probably end up mentally retarded or have issues of some type yet i never did. But looking back mom thinks i had AS/HFA this whole time and they never knew. Personally i wonder if the difficult birth could have caused it.

 

[AsheSkyler]

All forms of substance abuse from alcohol to tobacco to prescription drugs to street drugs have at one time been suggested as a cause of autism. Mom has a TON of things blamed on her as far as causes of autism go, from her being abused as a kid to letting her kid watch television, and birth complications were also on that list. Whether or not there is truth in any of it or it was said by another one of those whacko lobbyists doing anything to win their cause, I can't say. But until some of it is properly ruled out or verified by scientists in the grand scheme of things, it is plausible that your birth trauma dislocated some neural pathways and made you autistic. Lack of oxygen is one of the causes of cerebral palsy, after all.

 

[Tom]

I dug up one of the things I mentioned seeing earlier. As some have mentioned lack of oxygen is considered very suspect:

"Complications Related to Autism
Neonatal anemia, a condition in which the body doesn’t have enough oxygen-carrying red blood cells, for example, was associated with nearly eight times the risk a child would develop autism later in life.

Meconium aspiration, which can occur when a fetus that’s under stress and not getting enough oxygen inhales waste products inside the womb, was linked to a sevenfold increase in the likelihood that a child would later develop autism. Birth injury or trauma increased autism risk fivefold.

Babies with blood types incompatible with their mother’s had nearly four times the risk.

Very low birth weight infants, or infants weighing less than 3.3 pounds at birth, faced triple the risk.

Maternal hemorrhage more than doubled the odds.

Other factors tied to increased autism risk, though to a lesser degree, included congenital malformations, breech and other kinds of abnormal birth positions, multiple birth, a low 5-minute Apgar score, weighing less than 5.5 pounds at birth, umbilical cord complications, fetal distress, being small for gestational age."

Full article: Birth Complications Linked to Autism

 

[Tom]

I did want to add that nothing precludes a person having more then one potential source of autism.

- For instance it can be given to you genetically.
- Certain environmental factors increase the risk of developing autism (ie. pregnant mothers exposure to air pollution, pesticides, certain chemicals, etc)
- Some Complications and conditions during pregnancy and delivery also increase the risk.

In my case, all three are possible.

it does exist in other family members and there were complications at birth and my Mother was likely exposed to air pollution in NYC during the pregnancy (1950's) and perhaps also pesticides as DDT was in use and they still fogged entire neighborhoods.

Did only one have an effect? Or did two causalities occur and I have a autism blend?

Idk, but I do suspect the increase in identified autism cases is not just due to better identification and diagnosis alone. I do think we added at least some cases, possibly many, due to use of chemicals and pollution. Looking at China's pollution problems today, I would therefore guess they will see an increase in the years coming.

 

[Progster]

It's a bit of a mystery why I have AS too, as no one in my family was diagnosed with it, but my mum had leukemia while she was pregnant with me.

 

[Ste11aeres]

Autism diagnosis is symptom based, not underlying-cause based. Therefore, it's plausible that there could be various causes of autism, and it is plausible that brain injury could sometimes be one of them.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Autism diagnosis is symptom based, not underlying-cause based. Therefore, it's plausible that there could be various causes of autism, and it is plausible that brain injury could sometimes be one of them.

Mine is totally genetic. I had a good mom, she had a good expectancy (despite attempts from the doctors to not let it be, idiots as they are), I grew up a long ways from the road in the country and on cast iron skillets (so that rules out the non-stick cookware on me), and generally I had a very healthy childhood.

 

[Lena_C]

I want to figure it out too.
I have epilepsy since 1 years old......until now

 

[Warmheart]

A bumpy entry & early seizures here, too. However, several people in my family are on the spectrum of awesomeness.