Study: Spacing babies close may raise autism risk

[joeglow3]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_he_me/med_autism_birth_spacing_5



CHICAGO – Close birth spacing may put a second-born child at higher risk for autism, suggests a preliminary study based on more than a half-million California children.

Children born less than two years after their siblings were considerably more likely to have an autism diagnosis compared to those born after at least three years.

The sooner the second child was conceived the greater the likelihood of that child later being diagnosed with autism. The effect was found for parents of all ages, decreasing the chance that it was older parents and not the birth spacing behind the higher risk.

"That was pretty shocking to us, to be honest," said senior author Peter Bearman of Columbia University in New York. The researchers took into account other risk factors for autism and still saw the effect of birth spacing.

"No matter what we did, whether we were looking at autism severity, looking at age, or looking at all the various dimensions we could think of, we couldn't get rid of this finding," Bearman said. Still, he said more studies are needed to confirm the birth spacing link.

[Common Sense Party]

1. Interesting.

Of course, it does nothing to help explain why our firstborn is severely autistic and will never speak and our second child is a straight-A honor student and extremely verbal. Especially since they were so "closely spaced" in their births.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Yeah, my firstborn is the one who has "Asperger-like" features. (The second one has

his own issues, but autism isn't one of them.)

[Common Sense Party]

3. Yeah, my honor student has plenty of issues, too

They're just issues that aren't on the autism spectrum.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Makes you wonder what toxins in our air, water, and food are combining to

cause some of these problems. (I dunno if I can blame the bipolar on anything other than genetics as I think at least some form of mood issue can be traced back a few generations.)

[jwirr]

9. My family can trace bipolar back 5 generations. I think we can be

pretty certain of that one.

[mzteris]

15. unknown miscarriage?

Many women become pregnant, miscarry, and never even know it.

Though in actuality, I don't think they're saying that that "all close second births" are autistic, just that it increases the odds...

[Common Sense Party]

17. No, I know they're not saying "all,." I'm just saying that like most

autism studies I've seen, it does nothing to address our particular family's circumstances.

And, no, there was no unknown miscarriage in our case. We were married, and conceived about three months later. Baby #1 was due on our wedding anniversary. We didn't have time for a miscarriage.

[kestrel91316]

4. Hmmm. My sister is only 18 months older than me, and I have often thought,

since this whole Asperger's syndrome came about, that I was a bit Aspie-ish. I am very solitary in my habits, uncomfortable in social situations with lots of people I don't know, extremely phobic about public speaking, mild obsessive tendencies, sometimes antisocial behavior (ask my sister, she was at the brunt of it when we were kids, lol).....

Very interesting. Could be.

[mzteris]

16. my kids are 13 years apart

and my 2nd is "aspie ish"...

I'm the youngest of THREE - 4-5 years apart and the most "aspie-ish"...

I have a friend whose oldest is "very aspie" (his dad is aspie).

My other friend has a 3rd child - son - who is autistic - there were about um - 4 years between he and the 2nd, and about 11 months between the 1st & the 2nd.

[Common Sense Party]

19. I wish they would break the data out in these studies.

Aspie-ish is one thing. Severe autism is a completely different animal. I'd like to see more studies that focus on the latter.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. interesting and frustrating at the same time.

How can this help? What insights can it give us? It's like being told that the risk of autism is 30% higher for kids born on tuesdays. It's hard to imagine a way to make this datapoint actionable.

[William769]

7. I have six brothers & sisters, all of my mothers births were less than two years apart.

My father is the baby of 14 children, my grandmothers births were all less than two years apart. No Autism in our family anywhere.

:shrug:

[karynnj]

20. similar to you

My mom had 9 kids in 12 years. No autism and only me (the oldest) and the youngest who was about 2 and a half years younger than the one before her are NOT "closely spaced.

But, I don't know what the % of the population is or the $ for closely spaced. I suspect that it is low enough that it is pretty likely to have no autism even with 21 kids - as your two generations have.

[AngryAmish]

8. Many/most of these epidemiological studies are garbage

Say they study 20 different factors, statistically one of them will be found to be significant (95% confidence level) when not. Causation and correlation and that good stuff. I'm glossing over a lot and I assume with a study this large they looked at that and all but the grain of salt in these things must be large).

[Zoeisright]

24. Wrong. It's the anecdotal evidence that's garbage.

Just because it didn't happen to one family doesn't mean it isn't true. And at any rate, it's not good for mothers or babies to be spaced too close together. The mother's body needs time to heal and recharge before going through the stress and danger of pregnancy again.

[thelordofhell]

10. That explains the Mormons

:shrug:

[Teaser]

14. slur on mormons, or autistics?

.

[Common Sense Party]

18. Both?

[Teaser]

22. well I guess I should be thankful

I'm not religious then, only half the insult.

[Jennicut]

11. My daughters are 12 1/2 months apart. No autism in the second one

but I can attest to the fact that it is hard on the mother's body. My type 1 diabetes was diagnosed right after my second one was born.

[RichGirl]

12. Actually...boys are much higher at risk.

One in 60....yes 60!!! has autism.

[Teaser]

13. firstborn aspie here.

but interesting study nonetheless.

[Odin2005]

21. LOL, I was born 10 years after my half-sister.

:rofl:

probably more junk science funded by Autism Speaks.

[Skittles]

23. strange

I'm a "double Irish twin" - one brother 11 months older than me, one brother 11 months younger than me. But it's the brother who is four years younger than me is severely autistic.

[boppers]

25. Parents neurotic about a child more likely to freak out about another child!

Lovely. More psycho parent reactions to a child being different.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

26. BS my mother had 11 babies in a row and not one instance of Autism amongst us...

all my siblings are 12 to 14 months apart in age...she was perpetually pregnant