Tag Archives: pregnancy

Decreased Autism Rates Found with Healthy Fats During Pregnancy

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By Chris Weller

Consuming various healthy fats during pregnancy may reduce a woman’s risk of having a child with autism, new research finds.

Published in the Journal of American Epidemiology by the Harvard School for Public Health, the study examined maternal intake of certain fatty acids across mothers whose children have autism and those whose do not. The study found that women who consumed linoleic acid — a type of omega-6 acid found in vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds — were 34 percent less likely to birth a child with autism, while women who consumed low levels of omega-3 fatty acids — those found in fish — were more 53 percent more likely.

“Our results provide preliminary evidence that increased maternal intake of omega-6 fatty acids could reduce risk of offspring [autism spectrum disorder],” the researchers wrote, “and that very low intakes of omega-3 fatty acids and linoleic acid could increase risk.”

The researchers point to the fatty acids’ importance in the fetus’ brain development, coupled with the mother’s stores of fatty acid toward the end of the pregnancy, as contributing to the decreased risks. However, they could only draw associative links, no causal claims, between the two behavior patterns.

The study included 317 mothers whose children have autism spectrum disorder and 17,728 mothers whose children do not. The mothers all completed surveys about their diets during pregnancy, with some filling out the information while pregnant and others completing it one year after birth.

One standout figure from the research was that women who consumed more omega-3 fatty acids than other women did not necessarily reduce their child’s risk for autism. At a certain point, the benefits reached a threshold.

This suggests that although getting too little omega-3 fatty acids may increase the risk of autism, once a certain threshold is reached, further consumption doesn’t provide an extra benefit, the researchers said.

Because of the limited sample size and correlative link, the researchers recommended further testing be done.
Read more at http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/17077/20130702/healthy-fats-autism-risk-fetus-brain-development-omega-3-fatty-acids-pregnancy.htm#zHJkvEcXGqufHxwU.99

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Should Addicts be Sterilized?

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Project Prevention has long paid poor, addicted women not to procreate. Now the far right is helping it go global.

BY , THE FIX

Should addicts be sterilized?

A volunteer outside a Project Prevention van

“Don’t let a pregnancy ruin your drug habit,” the slogan on the fliers reads. Another says, “She has her daddy’s eyes…and her mommy’s heroin addiction.” Then: “Get birth control, get ca$h.” These are posters that show up nationwide in homeless shelters and methadone clinics, in AA and NA meeting rooms and near needle exchange programs, distributed by volunteers for Project Prevention. Formerly called Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK), the controversial nonprofit pays drug addicts $300 to either undergo sterilization or use a form of long-term, “no responsibility needed” birth control.

“What makes a woman’s right to procreate more important than the right of a child to have a normal life?” Project Prevention founder Barbara Harris told Time magazine in 2010. The question is entirely rhetorical: her self-professed mission in life is to zero out the number of births to parents who abuse illegal drugs, particularly crack cocaine. “Even if these babies are fortunate enough not to have mental or physical disabilities, they’re placed in the foster-care system and moved from home to home,” she says.

Critics of many stripes have piled on. They argue that Harris’ campaign deprives women who are addicted, poor and vulnerable of reproductive choice even as it feeds their drug habit.

Some opponents say that, since the financial incentive is tantamount to giving addicts money to buy drugs, Project Prevention should be illegal.

Others say that if addicted women are viewed as not responsible enough to have a baby, then they should also be viewed as not responsible enough to give informed consent to having a serious medical procedure in exchange for drug money.

Still others say that Harris is stuck in the past by targeting the wrong drugs: these days, more babies are born dependent on Oxy and other legal opiate painkillers than cocaine or heroin, according to a report published just this week in JAMA.

And many opponents say that the payment is a bribe, and some have even called Project Prevention a revival of the eugenics movement.

Harris takes none of these criticisms seriously. The California foster mother, age 59, started the program in 1997, following her failed effort to get the Prenatal Neglect Act through the California state legislature. The bill would have made it a crime for a pregnant woman to use illegal drugs. (Such laws exist in many states: last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine profiled an Alabama woman named Amanda Kimbrough who is serving 10 years in prison for doing crystal meth while pregnant and giving birth after only 25 weeks to a very underweight baby who died.) Shifting tactics, the homegrown activist then began her campaign for a less punitive, if more final, solution to the “problem” of drug-addicted mothers bringing children into the world: pay them not to procreate.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/02/should_addicts_be_sterilized_salpart/singleton/

Could Autism be Linked with Mothers’ Obesity During Pregnancy?

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By Associated Press

Obesity during pregnancy may increase chances for having a child with autism, provocative new research suggests.

It’s among the first studies linking the two, and though it doesn’t prove obesity causes autism, the authors say their results raise public health concerns because of the high level of obesity in this country.

Study women who were obese during pregnancy were about 67 percent more likely than normal-weight women to have autistic children. They also faced double the risk of having children with other developmental delays.

On average, women face a 1 in 88 chance of having a child with autism; the results suggest that obesity during pregnancy would increase that to a 1 in 53 chance, the authors said.

The study was released online Monday in Pediatrics.

Since more than one-third of U.S. women of child-bearing age are obese, the results are potentially worrisome and add yet another incentive for maintaining a normal weight, said researcher Paula Krakowiak, a study co-author and scientist at the University of California, Davis.

Previous research has linked obesity during pregnancy with stillbirths, preterm births and some birth defects.

Dr. Daniel Coury, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said the results “raise quite a concern.”

He noted that U.S. autism rates have increased along with obesity rates and said the research suggests that may be more than a coincidence.

More research is needed to confirm the results. But if mothers’ obesity is truly related to autism, it would be only one of many contributing factors, said Coury, who was not involved in the study.

Genetics has been linked to autism, and scientists are examining whether mothers’ illnesses and use of certain medicines during pregnancy might also play a role.

The study involved about 1,000 California children, ages 2 to 5. Nearly 700 had autism or other developmental delays, and 315 did not have those problems.

Mothers were asked about their health. Medical records were available for more than half the women and confirmed their conditions. It’s not clear how mothers’ obesity might affect fetal development, but the authors offer some theories.

Obesity, generally about 35 pounds overweight, is linked with inflammation and sometimes elevated levels of blood sugar. Excess blood sugar and inflammation-related substances in a mother’s blood may reach the fetus and damage the developing brain, Krakowiak said.

The study lacks information on blood tests during pregnancy. There’s also no information on women’s diets and other habits during pregnancy that might have influenced fetal development.

There were no racial, ethnic, education or health insurance differences among mothers of autistic kids and those with unaffected children that might have influenced the results, the researchers said.

The National Institutes of Health helped pay for the study.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/could-autism-be-linked-with-mothers-obesity-during-pregnancy-study-says-it-could-be-a-factor/2012/04/08/gIQAxevS4S_story.html

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