Interesting Articles on Autism

Being a speech-pathologist and all (and a dork who is into research), I came across two amazingly similar articles in two days. I thought they were incredibly interesting especially since I see these kids so often at work and their parents are always looking for a cause or the answer to the "why" question. I also like research and how things can be analyzed (hmm...type A personality?). I used to think it would be neat to go back to school and get my doctorate just so I could do cool research on speech and language issues and development. Although now I do my own research daily with my own kids. Anyway......check out this article from Mom Logic and a similar article in Psychology Today from the May issue regarding research on causes of Autism. Basically the articles were talking about how the action-packed days a baby spends in utero influence her emotional and physical makeup for years to come. And how things you do as a mom (i.e., stress out, eating habits, etc.) can affect your baby while in the womb. Makes you want to be all "zen" all the time. The most interesting thing I also found was that 12 to 15 percent of Autism cases may occur because maternal autoantibodies—antibodies that a person makes against something in themselves—interfere with proteins in the fetal brain. So when they tell you not to eat high mercury content fish, there are all these things out there that can affect your baby and there is nothing you can do about it. Crazy!!!! All you can do it take the best care of yourself and your children and put it in the hands of fate.