AS AN AUTISTIC PERSON, WERE YOU BORN PREMATURE?

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OK, you just made me laugh out loud...

*gets a towel to dry off monitor*

I was born over a month late.

[quote="Callista"]In most cases, the baby hormonally determines when it will be born (in cases of multiples or too much amniotic fluid, that might not be the case, but usually it is). So it could be that the prematurity doesn't cause autism at all, but that autism causes prematurity.

intriguing...but how could autism cause prematurity? i would think it would be whatever factor triggering the autism that would be also causing the prematurity, so that autism and prematurity are correlationals that share a common cause.

That's funny, I've written that here before about how my mother described holding me felt like holding a "sack of potatoes". She also said I had my days and nights mixed up, cried all night, slept all day, never cracked a smile when tickled, didn't know how to nurse and later didn't answer to my own name and also that I never said much. She said she watched me a lot throughout childhood because I seems rather peculiar to her as compared to her other children.

Callista, just try to back off a little bit okay? None of us are experts here, just trying to talk about our own experiences.

The interesting thing is that my mom said I was premature because I was just 'impatient'.

And I still am.

Could be. I mean, there's (probably) a positive autism/prematurity correlation, but that doesn't mean that prematurity causes autism. Correlation doesn't mean a cause... But we knew that already.

Autism causing prematurity... Whatever genetic difference causes autism could also have some effect that causes prematurity. (I guess that'd be a common cause.) Or some hormonal or immunological aspect of autism could make prematurity more likely... the baby's brain starts signaling hormones before birth, and so does the placenta.

Don't think we'll actually figure out cause/effect until there's a genetic test for autism (something I hope never happens, even though it would be wonderfully interesting, because there'd be all this eugenic abortion going on... uuuhh... can of worms, yeah.) and maybe not then... Unless there's some obvious difference between autistic and non-autistic babies and their placentas or amniotic fluid that you could detect... maybe some tendency to stop progesterone production too soon or something...

i was born 6 days early..woop woop for my lucky number

I was born a week early, but the doctor who delivered me was impatient and used forceps when they probably weren't necessary. I think that I had AS since birth.

My mother had four children, and she had pre-eclampsia every time. Her first pregnancy (my older sister, NT) was born normally. But my older brother (way too NT) was born a month late. Then came I (self-diagnosed AS), born a month early. And my younger sister (suspected to be retarded) was born on time, but purplish.

An interesting aside is that both my younger sister and I were born with massive pieces of wax in our ears. Mine were no problem until adulthood, but my sister had trouble learning to speak until she had them removed. And for some time after that, she was hypersensitive to noises.

I was born very early, at 24 weeks gestation. It was actually amazing that I survived, since technology for the care of preemies was not as advanced then as it is now.