Children Born to Obese Moms May Face Higher Autism Risk: Study

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Re:
Autism may be linked to obesity during pregnancy
Shades of "Refrigerator Mothers." Don't know what that means? Google it. Personally I can't bear to revisit that unforgivable mental torture the so-called "experts" inflicted on mothers of children with autism.
These people had better be right because if they're not, NOTHING will justify the pain and suffering they have just thrust upon millions of mothers of children with autism.
At least reporters could have included the "wrong diagnosis" of "refrigerator mothers" in their coverage to soften the blow.
Brenda Beust Smith

Brenda Beust Smith of TX 8:30AM April 10, 2012

To title this article such as you did was irresponsible. I am a mother 2 young child one of whom is autisic. This article is going to make any mother who was 20lbs or more overweight feel like it was their fault. I was not overweight when I was pregnant eith either of my children. When my son was diagnosed we did every testing possible and everything came back neg...it was something that just happened. I did read your whole article some of the contents should have been stated in the first paragraph so that there is no confusion.

Michele Bennett of NJ 9:18PM April 09, 2012

Ryan and Joe, you are morons. :-)

Kit of WI 7:10PM April 09, 2012

It could be that the moms were older, and older pregnant moms tend to be a little heavier. Older moms tend to produce children with more birth defects due to older eggs. Or, it could be that these moms are holding more mercury from fish and pollution in their fat stores since they have been around longer, not unlike the larger fish, who are at the top of the food chain and store more mercury in their fat tissues. So it may not be the fat per se. Correlation does not always equal causation. (Speaking as a chunky older mom with two autistic kids.)

Kit of WI 7:08PM April 09, 2012

We've been subject lately to a rash of questionable science headline-grabbing stories such as "eating meat kills you" and "fat moms have retarded kids", that ignore the most basic scientific rigor.
Considering that the correlation between simply being in the US, or say having any of the typical us-specific birth procedures (pitocin induction, vitamin k superdose, baby/mother separation .. . ) and the incident of autism, this fairly weak indicator (a 67% increase) seems an oddly out-of-place mention?
Why not mention that giving birth in the us has approximately an 11.3 per 1000 in the us is estimated to qualify as ASD. Compare that to the UK, where that figure is 2.5 per 10,000.
But no, you won't ever see studies linking ASD to medical practices in the US. Articles which bites the hand that feeds us are unpopular. They raise eyebrows and endanger funding, so instead we get this. Crap science that blames fat mothers, because that's 'safe' for the researchers, if worthless and unenlightening.

nox of TX 3:21PM April 09, 2012

I wonder what Jenny McCarthy would have to say about this. Her son Evan is on the spectrum and she wasn't obese in the least when she gave birth to him.
Is 67% really a statistically significant number? Are there not many other possible factors that need to be tested and disproven or proven? When articles are written on the premise of "alarming results" it's bad science and it's not helpful. We all remember the vaccine link to autism that turned out to be untrue and bogus.
I think I'd want to know about other factors -- did any of those have a statistically higher correlation. How about playing video games, and screen time? How about television watching, how many of these kids watch lots of TV. What's their diet like? Are these kids early readers, what's their IQ, did their parents read to them? I am thinking that the factors listed have zero signifigance.
The incidence of autism in the USA is roughly 11.4 per 1000 children in the world. Compare that to 2.98 per 10,000 children in the United Kingdom. That is statistically a huge number.
Now while they have proven that vaccines aren't connected with austim the USA uses supervaccines and other countries do not, and our use of mercury in vaccines is used nowhwere else in the world.
I think they should have included those factors in their study.

Parents Via Egg Donation of OR 11:53AM April 09, 2012