Can Low Birth Weight Raise Autism Risk?

I started to go down the responses and comment but decided to do it in a general post and save my breath. First of all I am soooo tired of seeing these articles about autism. This week there are four different articles and none have any real content. It could be caused by low birth weight... they wanna change how they classify it... blah blah blah. Instead of wasting energy and resources on speculation and classification they need to find out the cause and how to help these kids. My heart belongs to two wonderful boys with autism. I didnt decide I wanted extra attention one day and decide they were gonna have it. There is a process that takes time and a lot of testing before you get the diagnosis. More than anything I would LOVE for my children to be average. They arent brats who misbehave and need a spanking. They get in trouble when they act out and I do spank. I am proud to say that I can take my boys anywhere and not worry about how they are going to act. They arent on any medication and they are not retarded. The difference in my children vs "average child? My son who is 8 cant tell me how his day went. He cant tell me if someone said something to hurt his feelings. Most kids are nicer to him than some adults that like to make comments behind the screen of their computer. He has picked up some speech thanks to therapy and a lot of working with him. None of your tax dollars go to support him and pay for us to live large. We dont get a check each month. We work for what we have. I didnt smoke, drink or use drugs. My oldest son got his vaccines on time and for those of you that wanna place the blame on it... my youngest didnt get his until after his diagnosis. We could tell early on before any vaccines that something "just wasnt right." It is hard watching my children's peers pass them. My oldest can do amazing things and is super smart; yet doesnt have any friends. It isnt that kids are mean to him; he just doesnt know how to respond to them. It is easy to make comments about something when you hide behind a computer screen. Most of the hurtful comments are from people who dont know someone with autism. 9 years ago; the only thing I knew about autism was the movie "Rain Man." Then my son was born and stopped doing like his peers at 18 months. He didnt have any of the signs so I never suspected it. None of our other family members have it. When he was 3 and a half after months of tests and specialists and blaming me; a neurologist diagnosed him. My life changed and I had to adapt my hopes and dreams for him. We were told that we had a little to no chance since there wasnt a family history of our next child having it.... Ha! Our 3 yr old son was diagnosed a few months ago. My dreams of having a "normal" child are gone. I love my boys and am very blessed to have them call me Mom. Unless some serious testing and actual research is done; this will spread more. Chances are if you dont know someone with autism now.... within the next five years you will. I wouldnt wish that on my worst enemy.

With a keyboard and a PC,it can.

So many know-it-alls here that "have no clue' yet disparage anyone who points at a source. It is almost as if you autism relatives wear the autism as a badge of pride and do not want to find the source.

Vaccinations = autism. The shots are often the catalyst. My two daughters and my son were shot full of vaccinations. Other than being gravely sick for a day, none became autistic. That means there is far more involved than just thimerosol-laced shots.

However, quaint little yahoo posters have decided to pillory anyone labeling dangerous influences in a child's development.

Shame on you. Shame on you for what we do to our kids in the name of going along with everyone else. My children's health means far more than your silly rhetoric.

Good grief! So many theories, so little knowledge. Liss, my heart goes out to you.However, there is no such as never! I was born with Autism 52 years ago. I did not speak for 7 years. I had epileptic fits constantly. I grew up in a Rudolph Steiner home, and eventually met my father when I was 7. However, I was able to communicate very clearly with all the other non functioning kids. We did not use words. We watched each other, and used cues like smell, body temperature, size of the iris, physical movement. We understood each other way better than I can express to this day with words! For me, it took many,many years to cope with this noisy and overwhelming world. Too many sounds, too many people, and I would completely shut down. I could not function! Part of Autism for me was EXTREME sensitivity to stimulli. I continue to work on this on a daily basis. My point is, nothing and nobody is STATIC! We continue to learn and change. For me, the most annoying thing about these discussions is the inability of MANY people to understand that THE SPOKEN WORD IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO COMMUNICATE! Try to put yourselves in an Autistic person's shoes, and it is easier to see why and how we develop other forms of communication. and to recognise that this does not make us dumb, or wrong! Not everything is black and white. In fact, most of us live in the areas in between, the various shades of grey! Love and understanding to all.

Autism can be reproduced by causing/introducing nutritional deficiencies?
Are any other animals known to have what appears to be Autistic-like symptoms?

before anyone judge weather or not autism is real or not try living with it .true we don't really know what causes it but that dosen't mean it isn't real.my son is autistic and i have lived with it for 18 yrs so don't tell me it isn't real-- that said i love my son and wouldn't trade him for anything

Could be the autistic fetus is small b/c it is autistic..instead of autistic b/c it is small..

Normally, identical twins weigh about the same. Once in a while one twin is able to siphon off the nutrients of the other and as a result you have one born with a lower birth weight. So, is it weight itself that could be causing the problem or lack of nutrients?

So, in identical twins with "risk genes" for autism, if only one has autism that means that "risk genes" are malarkey? No, it's low birth weight that trumps heredity. Such convoluted reasoning to keep the autism money maker cranking along, until it disappears like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Has anyone looked into the mother’s weight? With the obsession of being thin I am wondering if some women have enough fat to create the myelin sheaths that surround the babies growing brain neurons.

Keep baking, Little One. I'm going to go get some more ice cream...

Autism = vaccinations.

Lower birth weight would naturally come with a less mature immune system. So this is further evidence that autism is caused by an immature immune system over reacting to an environmental or biological attack it's not ready to handle.

I recommend parents hold off on immunity shots for just 6 months to 1 year at first. They can get caught up later, before the child enters preschool. But even this is no guarantee. The culprit is an immature immune system, meaning anything that it's not ready to handle can cause autism - colds, flu, bacteria, or even chemicals the child might be allergic to.

Liberalism leads to Autism.

It's the vaccines.

America need to step away from the drugs and let children be children.

autism spectrum disorder = made up crap
ADHD = made up crap

USA consumes over 95% of the world Ritalin supply - drugging tens of millions of health vigorous inquisitive kids into a soul-destroying stupor.

The utter trash that teach is state schools are lazy beasts that want docile kids copying rubbish from books all day (instead of asking questions and learning) as they sit in class reading magazines and surfing sex dating sites on the Internet.

America is the toilet of the world and Americans hate their children.

No ...but diminishing DHA levels from bad diet and increasing vaccine #'s will...

Children with autism can be cured by slapping their legs.

American kids get way to early weaned if bottle or breast ...they should get their fat babba or boobies untill two years at least one in the morning and one before bed to create myelin sheets around the nervs in the brain ....for some reason ..they take them off at 12 month and some lazy moms even earlier ...than they soooo proud because their kids eats cerial and cowsmilk ...and that does absolutley NOTHING for brain development ....kids need healthy FATS a lot to develop a brain AND iron ...cowsmilk does not have iron ...and when a iron defficiency was present during ...infancy ...the IQ points lost actually canot be recovered even with given iron supplements and restoring iron...stores...