Comments on: Worrying About Autism More Than Anything Else

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:07:56 +0000

I do not like seeing autism treated in the same light as psychiatric illnesses. It leaves our children in the twilight of being medically treated with the psychiatric drugs. These drugs have such wonderful side effects that there are patients who prefer to go back down the psychoses well rather than continue to deal with how these drugs make them feel. They are management drugs that assuage the symptoms, with the right dosage which is different from one person to the next, and don’t cure anything.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:13:21 +0000

@Nancy Nally,
that definitely sets things in a different perspective—-

It doesn’t mean much, but I was happy while expecting Charlie—-being pregnant was, indeed, a wonderful experience.

By: Nancy Nally

Nancy Nally — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:00:45 +0000

ASDmomNC, I’m a genealogist (actually write for some genealogy magazines & used to research professionally for others). I have literally stacks of tombstone records and photos that document what it used to be like…all the lost children, the women routinely dying in childbirth.

I have great respect for the women in my family who lived a century or more ago. I don’t think a single one of them buried less than one small child. Many of them didn’t survive childbirth themselves.

A walk through a cemetery that is about 100-125 years old, filled with the graves of small children who died of childhood illnesses, might cure some of these anti-vaxxers of their religious fervor on the topic. Yeah, I know we can treat those illnesses better today than we could then, but it still gives you pause…

By: passionlessDrone

passionlessDrone — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:30:29 +0000

Hello friends –

The irony is that we have accumulating evidence that a stressful pregnancy is more likely to lead to a child that has autism or other developmental disorders. She may, indeed, be able to worry herself into the situation she so dreads.

- pD

By: ASDmomNC

ASDmomNC — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:56:40 +0000

““Natural” childbirth. “Natural” immunity acquired by having a disease. Some people seem to have forgotten that a lot of people died back when we all did it the “old-fashioned” way.”
—–

I say the exact same thing all the time. Natural remedies and methods have their place, but by God, I am VERY thankful for modern Western medicine.

People wax poetic about the “good old days” when everything was “natural,” but seem to conveniently overlook nasty little facts like the horrifyingly high infant and maternal mortality rates from things like death in childbirth and death from childhood ailments like whooping cough. Those were also “natural” realities of the “good old days.”

/soapbox

Nancy and Tanya, I’m very sorry for your losses.

By: mayfly

mayfly — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:41:06 +0000

What heartless disregard for your humanity? Has it become inhumane to care about the plight of a child?

I worry about by daughter’s future, no not every minute of the day, we are too busy enjoying life for that. But I do care about where she’ll live, if she’ll ever have friends, who her caretakers will be.

I make no apologies for my concerns.

By: CS

CS — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:58:19 +0000

@Mayfly

“It depends on if the worry is about the future life of the expectant mother or about the child.

Is the person worried about the the impact on her life, or the possible inability of the child to fully take part in society.”

As a person with an ASD, comments like the one above send chills through me for their heartlessness and disregard for my humanity.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:47:24 +0000

Thank you for this article! I had the autism/vaccine conversation with my doctor today and he actually gave me some good reading to do. My son is one…

By: mayfly

mayfly — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:26:48 +0000

It depends on if the worry is about the future life of the expectant mother or about the child.

Is the person worried about the the impact on her life, or the possible inability of the child to fully take part in society.

By: Club 166

Club 166 — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:03:32 +0000

It’s good to see the AAP taking a more active and involved approach to all of the scaremongering that has gone on.

One can only hope that parents pay attention. If I was a pediatrician, I’d photocopy that article and frame it for the waiting room.

Joe