Questions On Autism From A Pregnant Mom

[BlueGirl13]

Hi Everyone -
I'm currently 8 months pregnant with my second child and I have one son who is currently 2 1/2 years old. My son is not autistic and honestly, I never gave it much thought until reading all these articles and whatnot and now I'm nervous for my soon to be child and I can't seem to shake it.

I recently watched Larry King Live and the discussion with Jenny McCarthy about the possible causes of autism and some of the things she said left me a bit ill. She pointed out the list of vaccines comparative to 1983 to 2007 is a major difference, but I know my son hasn't had twenty-seven shots and currently he isn't having any more until his 5th year.
She also stated how therimosal (sp) is not out of vaccines and yet I question this because tons of doctors and scientists state it is. She states her child recovered from autism but I don't see how you can recover from a disorder. Also, she does have alot of money so these advanced therapies plus these glocuse-free diets aren't really cheap.
I guess I'm confused and I'm trying to educate myself so I'm not so nervous and worrisome for my children. I'm just not sure which steps to take or not to take and it's putting a toll on my nerves because tons of information seems to be thrown everywhere.

Any information or help would be great... Thanks!

[Angela77]

mjthewriterdad and 888mom too:
I don't mean to be so critical of Jenny McCarthy but I feel like she is putting out false information to parents who are looking for ways to help their children.  I feel like that is a dis-service to these parents who would attempt treatments not validated by the medical community.  Also, with these diets I noticed that parents claim improvement in things like "focus" and other unmeasurable things.  The GF-CF diet works for people with real allergies.  Patch testing is a way to determine allergies where they put little patches, like band-aids on your back and wait a few days to check for allergies.  
On another note, those DAN doctors scare me.  On their website they show things like hyperbaric chambers, enzymes, GF-CF, chelation.

[mjthewriterdad]

BlueGirl13:
You child isn't even born yet!  Chill!  With an older brother with a 2-1/2 year old nos diagnosis  you got enough without creating problems that may not exist!   Autism isn't something one "recovers" from.  Autistics learn to adapt to our world.  The same as persons who are blind or deaf  (or other disAbilities) adapt.   There are times, I found handling my daughter's younger neurotypical sister more challenging.  Now that she is in her teens and can drive 2 tons of glass and steel down concrete pathways, I worry more about her than I did when her older autistic sister turned that same age

Angela77
How old is Jenny Mc Carthy's son?  4 or 5?  Autism is a life-long condition.  He as a long road ahead.  Many moms see some progress for a year or two and suddenly pronounce a "cure" only to find new challenges when children get into 6th grade or middle school.  

Even when my daughter had early intervention, speech and occupational therepies, sensory integration, social stories and  graduated HS with honors in the top 10% of her class and went to some college, she still has autsm.  She still has her limitations.  

[888mom]

Jenny McCarthy is concerned about her son.  It's not her who's the quack, it's the DAN doctors who feed her all this information.  Maybe some of it is right, I really don't know... but the vaccines have not had thermiserol in them in many years.  They don't have mercury since then either.  The diet stuff, I don't know if it works, but I tried it briefly with my daughter and she showed no improvement in a month, that I just added the stuff back in.  The thing is, these special diets and metal removal stuff takes years to go through, and these kids make progress with therapy during this time or their brain develops, so to claim that the special diet and metal removal and whatever else they are doing is what is curing them, it's probably the extensive early intervention services that are doing it.  And even without therapies, some kids are just late doing things, that they would start making progress with speech, language, etc. on their own.  

Best advice for concern is to get early intervention services, as Angela77 says.  We found sensory integration therapy for our daughter has helped her immensely, doing stuff like joint compression excercises, bouncing, rocking, and brushing and within 2 weeks we noticed changes for the better.  So, between speech, developmental, and occupational therapy, we have noticed changes in our daughter... in 6 months (she started at 24 months), she learned how to point, her eye contact is much improved, she is more vocal though the words are a bit hard to understand since she mispronounces things, and her sensory issues are mangeable.  In a few years, you might call her "cured", but who knows if she even has autism in the first place.  We had two diagnoses from two doctors.  The child psychiatrist said autism/PDD.  The developmental pediatrician (one of the tops in our state) said we have to wait a few years and find out, several years of observation.  He doesn't like to diagnose autism in kids who are 2 unless they are severe cases.  The milder cases may not be autism or they might be.  So maybe some of these kids who are being diagnosed autistic at age 2 and then "cured", maybe they aren't autistic to begin with.  Who really knows.  It's not to say my daughter doesn't have her issues if she isn't autistic.  And she very well may be.  But, I'm not going to go through all this quack stuff to "cure" her.  We did have her allergy tested for wheat and milk, and she's not allergic to it, so I'm not eliminating it from her diet.  And I refuse to go to a DAN doctor.  My daughter's sensory issues are getting a little better, but now she's developing some OCD issues.  We're still handling them with early intervention services therapy.  

[Angela77]

Jenny McCarthy is a quack! (in my opinion).  What does she have some sort of conspiracy theory that nobody else knows about?  Thimerisol has been out of all shots since 1999 EXCEPT the flu shot.  Besides that, both the Center for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics have reported there is no correlation between the shots and autism.  I trust their opinion rather than a Hollywood actress with no medical credentials.  There is no medical evidence to support the gluetin & casin free diets have any effect in treatment for children with autism.  My best advice is to follow what has been proven by medical science.  I understand that autism has been getting much attention lately in the media but you really need to consider the source of such claims like "I cured my son's autism."  Ms. McCarthy did mention that her son got Early Intervention services, education, speech and occupational therapies.  Those are the tools to the best outcomes for children with autism.