How's this one? My first two kids were c sections, no autism. I pushed my twins naturally, but the boy has Asperger's. I did have gestational diabetes with them and they were about 3 weeks early.

Vaginal births with both my children. Pitocin with my first - my daughter, who is fine. My son was a week late. Four hour labor. No trauma.

Zach was a vaginal birth, I didn't have contractions until after my water broke. Luckily, I was at my medical group when it happened as I had been feeling uncomfortable all day and I went in to see if one of the dr's could see me. It was 2 weeks before his due date and I expected the dr to tell me to go home and put my feet up and relax but my water broke before someone came in to see me. My undying gratitude goes to the receptionist who, after the first woman told me to have a seat in the waiting room, asked me if I was spotting and I said "yes, a little" immediately got me in to an office to wait. Within minutes my water broke, I opened the door and grabbed a nurse who immediately got 3 women into the room with me (2 dr's & a nurse) and they determined that, Yes, I had ruptured. At that point my contractions began fast and strong at 3 minutes apart and I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. That took about an hour and I thought I was going to deliver in the ambulance. At the hosp, there was no ob-gyn on duty and my dr (intern, as it was a family practice group where I had my pre-nata care)was on vacation. Luckily there was a wonderful mid-wife, but no one to give an epidural which I desperately wanted!!!The available dr from my family practice group (who I had never seen before) got there at 5:15 PM and Zach was born at 5:27. From my water breaking until Zach was born was a little under 3 hours. They had to give me an episiotomy-OUCH!!! as he was coming so fast and as I had had no lamaze since I had hoped for an epidural and was expecting a lengthy delivery, but there were no complications.

Sorry I got carried away on my last post.
At any rate, there are out there lurking in the medical profession, old time Osteopathic Physicians whose core belief is that all of life's ailments, whether large or small, are a direct result of birth trauma and that in order to live and fully function to the best of our ability, we need to have these traumas corrected through gentle manipulation. In my mind, it seems akin to the oriental belief of " aligning one's chi", but that's not what they call it. There's a book by Dr Robert Fulford called "Touch of Life" (I think that's it) that deals with this topic. Also along the same vein is the Upledger Institute in Florida which specializes in Cranio-sacral manipulation. Studies have been done on this treatment in connection with autism and there have been positive results. I haven't gone this route yet, but there is a woman in my area who trained there and whospecializes in pediatric treatments. It's on my list of things to do. :)
Just some food for thought.
Tracey

Hi:
Well, I like AllisonE had a vaginal delivery, but my doctor was in a c-section. I was fully dialated and Seans head was crowning, the nurses told me to close my legs and do not push. Oh yea, the spinal didn't work on me either I was the like 1% that it didn't work on (they said it was because I had scoliosis) Anyway, I was in horrible pain and could feel Seans head coming out and they made me stay like that an hour or maybe 2. The doctor came in told me to push and Sean came right out and his apgars were 9 - 9.

That evening about 5 hours later, Sean would not pass his meconium plug and started to turn blue upon feeding and ended up in NICU for a week. He did finaly go to the bathroom and drink normally, but this has always left an unsettling feeling in my stomach. Well, Sean was diagnosed ASD at age 2 1/2. I have always felt that this played a part in Seans life.

My younger son Brett, born via c-section has PDD-NOS- but very mildly affected. Who knows, but this is an area that should be considered by the medical community. Denise

I think birth trauma is a very possible cause. My daughter now aged 13 has PDD-Nos she was a forceps delivery, also there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, which we have wondered has attributed also to it.

While my son had is own issues before birth, breech and then externally turned, meconium in the amnoitic fluid, I was on meds (essential enzymes my liver wasn't producing), pitocin at delivery, oxygen after delivery... I'm still leaning toward the vaccs.