Comments on: Pregnancy Complications May Increase Autism Risk

By: Melissa Maimann

Melissa Maimann — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:22:10 +0000

I don’t know that we’d need to look at higher risk homebirths vs higher risk hosp births to see if intervention is the issue – we can look at high risk hosp birth with no intervention (it can happen) vs high risk hosp birth with lots of intervention.

By: Marge

Marge — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:48:21 +0000

It is possible to retrospectively study the difference between higher risk homebirths (low to moderate risk also) which include the above criteria, and compare the rate of autism to aggressively managed interventionist births with the same factors. It’s interesting that the AMA in both the US and Australia are currently coordinating an effort to stamp out homebirth. If they get their way, this type of data will be non-existent for future studies involving new drugs and machines that go ping. Undrugged homebirth should have it’s place as the control for all new and existing interventions.

By: Lisa Barrett

Lisa Barrett — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:01:15 +0000

I wonder if it’s the pregnancy complications that create the risk? It is possible that it’s medical intervention which is higher than ever in complex pregnancies is actually increasing the incidence of autism. Intervention increases stress which may be affecting the fetus.