The cause of autism (or at least the reason more and more people are being diagnosed with it) is probably one of the biggest mysteries in medicine. On one hand, there are solid measurables to prove that it is one the rise. On the other hand, it's been around for a while. Some people insist that Einstein was autistic, and having seen how good Brody is with math (He's doing multiplication now. Yeah- he just turned 6.) at such a young age, I believe it. Years ago, these were people that were shunned by society as being weirdos: people who struggle to interact normally with the rest of the world. People who are so ridiculously focused and intelligent that they never could fit in. Being that autism is a spectrum disorder, you have varying degrees of these effects.
One argument is that the vaccines are contributing to the problem, are they? Filled with all kinds of materials that wouldn't normally be in our bodies (such as aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, and mercury), I think it's a worthy thing to consider. Doctors tend to be adamant that these vaccines absolutely are not the source of the problem. Some of them may say that even if they do create their own set of problems, they save lives by preventing certain illnesses. I think that's a somewhat more reasonable argument, but it feels like we're a long way off from knowing the answer to that question. Brody got most of the same vaccinations other kids get up until age 3. His doctor spread out the shots a little more than other doctors, but he ultimately got all of them. When we found out that Brody was autistic, we decided to be much more careful with vaccines... however, there's not much out there that he didn't get (other than tune-ups). Could it have contributed? Absolutely. But there could have been other factors.
One of the more interesting ideas is the use of antibiotics. I think it's pretty safe to say that we get way too much antibiotics as a society. Basically, if you go to the doctor with a cold, you will leave with a prescription for antibiotics. Our bodies can't fend for themselves, apparently. The problem is that not only do we deprive our bodies of developing their own defenses, we kill off the good bacteria.
People talk about how the day their child was born being the greatest day of their lives. Not me. It was terrifying. I am thankful for every day I get to be the father of this wonderful child. The day I found out Melissa was pregnant was a much more meaningful day to me. But the day he was born? That was a nightmare. (Stay with me, I promise this goes somewhere related to the topic.)
He was a few days late, which always (I imagine) adds to the anxiety of the delivery day. Things went relatively smooth all day... contractions 5 minutes apart for a while, then down to 3 minutes. Finally, the hospital let us stay. As Melissa is getting hooked up to the machines, things are still fine. Being that everything was okay, I head down to the car to get our stuff, as we would be staying for a while. When I get back, nurses are running in and out of Melissa's room, so I knew there was a reason to worry. Apparently, while I was gone, they poked Brody's head with some kind of sensor, and his heart rate dipped way down. They got it back up, but every freaking time they did something to him, his heart rate dropped.
After a couple hours of this, it finally dipped down to "emergency" status, and they rushed Melissa off to a room where I couldn't go with her. They made me sit outside for, like, 10 minutes while God knows what was going on in there. Melissa was terrified, she didn't know what would happen, she was alone. Finally someone let me in the room, where I got to hold Brody for the first time.
It had been an emergency c-section. His APGAR score was quite low, it was 3 out of 10. He had a pretty strong cry going by the time I was in the room, and his second score was 9, so he was obviously doing better by the time I met him. I got to talk to Melissa briefly, but they were busy doing stuff with her innards that I wanted nothing to do with. I got to show her Brody, but before I knew it, they were shuffling us off to another room. A few minutes later (maybe 30), we were all together again in Melissa's recovery room, and she finally got to hold him after 3 hours.
My memory of that time is also disturbed by what happened a week later. While everything seemed okay with Brody after the excitement of his first day, things were progressively getting worse for Melissa. She was swelling and putting on water weight. Her blood pressure was high. There were warning signs before we were discharged, but the doctors ignored them. Melissa had a heart problem.
Melissa was admitted to the hospital so they could see what was wrong with her heart. There was the myriad of tests and theories, everything was chaotic. I spent one night wondering if Melissa would live through the night. Fortunately, Melissa's family was able to help us take care of Brody, because we couldn't for a couple of days. After they gave her a diuretic, she lost 30 pounds of water within a day or two. To make a long story short, she had a "post-partum cardiomyopathy", or a fancy word for "we don't know what the hell is wrong with her." A few months of worrying followed that, as 1/3 of the people who suffer from this ailment have to have a heart transplant. Another 1/3 will be on medication for life, and the fortunate 1/3 recover.
I'm glad to say we were the happy 1/3 (so far). A few years later, someone suggested that the hospital pumped her too full of fluids during her c-section, and that may have been the cause of her problem. That sucks if it's true, because we decided not to have any more children because of the danger to Melissa. We will never know the answer, but I'm just thankful to have everyone alive at this point.
So as you can see, the first day & following week of Brody's life are not a good memory for me. What's interesting is that a lot of our friends who have autistic children have similar childbirth stories. There's a lot of c-sections going on out there. One thing we've heard is that the hospital administers a lot of antibiotics under the type of circumstances we were in. So, welcome to the world, Brody! By the way, we're now going to kill all of the good bacteria in your newborn body. It makes sense to me that this would lead to developmental problems.
Metals are suggested to be a problem, as I mentioned with the vaccines. Mercury and aluminum are being pumped into our kids. Another suggested problem is with mercury-based fillings. Melissa has a few mercury fillings, and it seems completely possible that Brody was exposed to an unnatural amount of mercury while he was growing inside her. Melissa is looking into getting different fillings, as we figure that mercury is probably not doing her any favors either.
I can't say if any one of these things are the cause of autism, although I am certain they don't help. Genetics surely play a role- as I mentioned before, I have family members on the autistic spectrum. I'm certain that I am on the spectrum. After a while, you tend to worry less about what caused it, and more about what you can do to help your child. I imagine that one day we'll look back in disgust at some of the things that are considered good medical practices, but that's just part of being an imperfect human. I mean, they used to bleed people who were sick! How stupid was that?!
0 comments:
Post a Comment