Autism/ultrasounds link

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I would not use this as any reason to avoid a legitimate diagnostic ultrasound, even in this unusual case, which is a pregnancy with a known genetic anomaly (such as the children in this* retrospective* analysis had).

I might use the study as the basis for research funds into a more focused study.

I thought this was a really good discussion of why it would be problematic to avoid an ultrasound based on this study:
“Let’s take a look at that autism-ultrasound link:” (Forbes)
forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2016/09/06/lets-take-a-look-at-that-autism-ultrasound-link/#3f9d6cca768e

I’m not saying I would ask someone run an ultrasound around on me when I’m pregnant as if it I were blithely X-raying my feet with one of those 1950s shoe store flouroscopes. Get the procedures you need, but there is no reason to get flippant about it. Decades of safe use has also been decades of use limited to what was needed.

Still, ultrasound is one of the more noninvasive ways to gain intelligence about how a pregnancy is going. For instance, an ultrasound I had done to look for a Down Syndrome risk in about the 13th week also showed that I was carrying twins! That scan did not carry the risks of a chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis tests. I wanted a chance to prepare if we were going to have a child with Down syndrome, but there was a real limit on the risk I wanted to take in order to get that information, since it would not change my prenatal care. A twin pregnancy is automatically a high risk pregnancy, by the way, so it was Ultrasound City after that.

(Twin studies have shown that autism is highly related to a child’s genetic make-up, by the way.)
 
Just about everybody nowadays gets early ultrasounds (even just for initial dating), so it would be very difficult to find a pool of non-ultrasound moms that was in every way equivalent to the ultrasound moms.

I know my current OB discouraged doing a recreational 3D ultrasound, though. We did one for Middle Kid, but he was a big kid baby at the time and this was years earlier. Interestingly, he is the only one of my three children who is **not **on the autism spectrum.
 
Xantippe said:
Just about everybody nowadays gets early ultrasounds (even just for initial dating), so it would be very difficult to find a pool of non-ultrasound moms that was in every way equivalent to the ultrasound moms.

I know my current OB discouraged doing a recreational 3D ultrasound, though. We did one for Middle Kid, but he was a big kid baby at the time and this was years earlier. Interestingly, he is the only one of my three children who is **not **on the autism spectrum.
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You know, when I scheduled my regular 20 week anatomy scan the scheduler was flabbergasted that I hadn’t had an early one. She probably asked me three different ways when I’d had it. I’ve always had the option but never done one. If I’m that far out of the norm, no wonder she was surprised!

(And I thought I was being good by being willing to cooperate with a LMP-based due date this time around! :p)
 
pensmama87 said:
You know, when I scheduled my regular 20 week anatomy scan the scheduler was flabbergasted that I hadn’t had an early one. She probably asked me three different ways when I’d had it. I’ve always had the option but never done one. If I’m that far out of the norm, no wonder she was surprised!

(And I thought I was being good by being willing to cooperate with a LMP-based due date this time around! :p)
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You would be a case in point–not typical.
 
Xantippe said:
You would be a case in point–not typical.
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I think there’s been a shift at least in this area even since my first pregnancy seven years ago, when you only got an early one if you requested it or were high risk. Most moms I knew then did not get them unless they had some weird circumstance. But many moms I know now, do, even the crunchier ones like me. I guess to me it just feels like one more thing I have to schedule. 😛

My mom had one with me (mid 80s), and then her OB for my brother had just had a machine installed in his office, and she likes to say he loved to play with his new toy so she had a sonogram at every single prenatal visit. My brother is mostly pretty normal. 😉 I don’t think any of his oddness is likely to be a result of my mother’s enthusiastic doctor.

I’m very skeptical of the idea of a link. A correlation, maybe? But so many things have changed in a short amount of time with prenatal care, how we raise our kids, etc.
 
pensmama87 said:
I think there’s been a shift at least in this area even since my first pregnancy seven years ago, when you only got an early one if you requested it or were high risk. Most moms I knew then did not get them unless they had some weird circumstance. But many moms I know now, do, even the crunchier ones like me. I guess to me it just feels like one more thing I have to schedule. 😛

My mom had one with me (mid 80s), and then her OB for my brother had just had a machine installed in his office, and she likes to say he loved to play with his new toy so she had a sonogram at every single prenatal visit. My brother is mostly pretty normal. 😉 I don’t think any of his oddness is likely to be a result of my mother’s enthusiastic doctor.

I’m very skeptical of the idea of a link. A correlation, maybe? But so many things have changed in a short amount of time with prenatal care, how we raise our kids, etc.
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Right.

It could totally be the kale…
 
Another possible issue–higher risk moms are going to wind up getting more ultrasounds (on average).
 
pensmama87 said:
I’m very skeptical of the idea of a link. A correlation, maybe? But so many things have changed in a short amount of time with prenatal care, how we raise our kids, etc.
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Right. My son has autism, so of course I’m very curious to know where it came from and why there is this exponential growth in diagnoses in recent years. But I’m very skeptical of most articles that purport to have found the elusive cause (or even just a link). I’ll want to see a pretty strong consensus based on very strong research.

Our culture has changed so much so fast with regards to technology, screens, transportation, processed foods, plastics, cellular signals, radio waves, wifi, medicine, etc., etc. So much of what we put into and onto our bodies, things travelling invisibly through the air, and the materials we use on a day to day basis are historically very new. How we separate out all those different factors is not a task I would be good at, though I hope such talented individuals come along.

I don’t imagine the cause will become apparent in my lifetime. But I look forward to finding out the answer in heaven. :o
 
Xantippe said:
Just about everybody nowadays gets early ultrasounds (even just for initial dating), so it would be very difficult to find a pool of non-ultrasound moms that was in every way equivalent to the ultrasound moms.

I know my current OB discouraged doing a recreational 3D ultrasound, though. We did one for Middle Kid, but he was a big kid baby at the time and this was years earlier. Interestingly, he is the only one of my three children who is **not **on the autism spectrum.
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We didn’t do any 3D ultrasounds, but we did have extra ultrasounds for my daughter (who is not on the spectrum) whereas we did not for my son (who is). She had what was effectively a birthmark on her heart that required extra viewings to make sure there were no issues. Of course, anecdotal evidence doesn’t go very far, but it is interesting.
 
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