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Diabetes and Autism

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R

Rockmonkey

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hello all. I am waiting for my daughter to be assessed as the school has referred her for an autism assessment. Anyway, I was shocked to read up on the autism society that children with diabetic parents are more likely to have autism.


Please note, this was not saying all diabetics who have children mean that those said children will end up with autism.
I mean I am a type 1 diabetic, and my oldest child is all ok, had complications at birth but my youngest child having lots of struggles.

Both had by c section at 38 weeks due to my diabetes but other than that all ok.


This really surprised me, I know autism is quite a common thing especially now it is being recognised, like many things. But I was just wondering how many parents here have children with autism and had you heard or known about this?

Sorry this may be a common/ known thing, but I am only finding out about it all.
 
Yes my son is autistic .
 
Just because someone has noticed that autistic children often have diabetic parents, it doesn’t necessarily mean that one causes the other though. You could plot a graph of how many people with blue eyes have diabetes, and then find which colour eyes most diabetic people have and say that if you’ve got that colour eyes you are more likely to have diabetes, when in reality it’s got nothing to do with it.

I’m the other way round, I don’t have diabetes but both my mum and my daughter are type 1 so it seems that there is a genetic link. My daughter is 17 and was diagnosed with autism 2 years ago, having gone all through primary school and half way through secondary with nobody picking up on it at all. I’m being told that autism usually runs in families; we are not aware of anyone else in either family having it. Both of my parents do display some definite traits of it, but have never been tested and just because you have some of the traits doesn’t mean that you are definitely on the spectrum, so who knows. Autism was barely heard of when I was young. So maybe we have it in the family, maybe we don’t. Then it was suggested that perhaps her difficult birth might be a cause, I was in labour for 17 hours, she was 8lb 15oz and head down but facing my front instead of my back, so basically couldn’t get through my pelvis. They tried turning her round but then her heart rate dipped so I had to have an emergency caesarean. The dip in heart rate suggests oxygen starvation and even if only very briefly, it may have caused the brain to develop differently. This is only a theory though I think, nothing proven.

Basically I don’t think anyone really knows what causes autism so I wouldn’t get hung up on it. Good luck with the assessment.
 
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