A study has come out indicating that having influenza and a fever during pregnancy can cause autism.
I know that I was sick for about 8 weeks before Will was born. I don’t remember if it was the influenza or a cold. I do know that I developed bronchitis as a secondary infection and that I cough so hard that I bruised a rib or two. My doctor gave me antibiotics after I asked for them. I was afraid that I wouldn’t have the strength to push during delivery.
Did I make a terrible mistake by asking for antibiotics? Or was it a terrible mistake to allow that secondary infection to go on so long? How can we possibly know? Or can we possibly keep from blaming ourselves for things that we have little control over?
And how do you explain the fact that his sister also has autism (Asperger’s syndrome) without maternal influenza? I could have had a cold during that pregnancy, but I don’t remember.
My personal theory is there may be a predisposition toward autism (genetics) combined with a variety of triggers (environment). That is just my feeling about it.
annkilter 
Just read that same article and couldn’t recall my having a fever when I was pregnant. Asked my husband if he remembered me having a fever… Nope. Now, I did pull an abdominal muscle when I was 7 months along… just had to trim those overgrown bushes that were bugging me… a little OCD… Yup! So if they find a correlation between pulled muscles and autism I am a believer!!! 🙂
I think they are sometimes grasping at straws. I wonder how significant it is compared to other risk factors.
I guess you’ve already heard about fever temporarily relieving symptoms of autism? It’s true – I had genuine influenza about 8 months ago and it was the weirdest experience ever – having full empathy – being able to see the people around me for who they really are, just for a couple of days. Needless to say I declined to live with them again when we moved house!
Ha.I think my son used to have visions when he had influenza. He ran such high fevers (104-105 Fahrenheit) for extended periods of time.
Yes, certainly ‘hallucinations’ too with flu, but in between ‘visions’ there’s empathy!
If he gets fever again, take the opportunity to get closer to his heart 🙂
I have plenty of empathy for my son, and vice versa. I have cared for him through several bouts of high fever, including the Swine Flu in 2009, which he shared with me. 🙂 Talk about empathy!
I often wonder if autism has multiple sources, and is indeed multiple medical challenges that manifest themselves similarly. This would explain what appears to be sometimes contradictory study results around what causes autism, as well as what allows for development of autistic kids, and even how different one person with ASD is from another.
I think you are right. I used to joke that our family’s type of autism would one day carry our family name – Kilter’s syndrome. Tall, thin, high pitched voices, hypotonia, a large space between the first and second toes, long legs, poor balance, brilliance.
Ann, that is funny! I do wonder a lot about this, because my daughter is very uniquely different from so many others we bump into on the spectrum. She actually finds peace in closeness with others, which is so distinct from many autistic folks we have met. She does love her patterns though, and there are so many other ‘classic autistic’ tendencies we see.
It’s not a surprise to me. The CHOA predicts that outside of the core constellation of autism symptoms, there will be more variation between autistic people than there is between people with any other lifelong condition.
The CHOA (HOA = Hypothesis Of Autism) is the only one that appears to fit with all the research.
Sadly, we cannot tell the world what the ‘C’ stands for (it’s not cannabis), yet.
I have aspergers syndrome and also had a brain bleed thing my mum was very ill throughout her pregnancy with me and was not diagnosed with addisons disease til after my birth my mum oft en wonders what i would be like if they had noticed things earlier very inteeresting
Mary had the cord wrapped around her neck at birth. She was diagnosed much later with a brain infarction (brain damage). It turned out that she had/has severe learning disabilities and left sided weakness, along with autism/asperger’s syndrome. I have sometimes wondered whether she would have been more like her brother (an academic achiever) if not for the brain damage. But we must go on. Perhaps her talent in accounting would never had developed if not for her disability.