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What would you do? - Prenatal ASD testing.

Submitted by Kerry on Wed, 18/03/2009 - 12:37am.

Tests to detect autism in unborn babies could be a step closer after breakthrough research by British scientists.

A study by Cambridge University's autism research centre has found that high levels of testosterone in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women was linked to autistic traits in children.

The scientists based their findings of a study of 235 children carried out during the first eight years of their lives.

Britain's Guardian newspaper said the findings raised the possibility of doctors carrying out a prenatal amniocintesis - similar to that used to test for Down's syndrome - to screen for autism.

Director of the university's research team Professor Simon Baron-Cohen said it was time for a debate on whether the tests should go ahead and if parents should be able to terminate pregnancies if autism is detected.

"If there was a prenatel test for autism, would this be desirable." he told the newspaper.

"We should start debating this.  There is a test for Down" syndrome and that is legal and parents exercise their right to choose temination, but autism is often linked with talent."

"It is a different kind of condition."

Prof Baron-Cohen said the research could also pave the way for drug companies to develop a pre-natal treatment for autism.

"There are drugs that block testosterone. But wheter we'd want to would be a different matter." he said.

From aap 2009

This debate would have to be bigger than the vaccination debate.  What do you think?

 

so close! ›

What would you do? - Prenatal ASD testing.

Submitted by iffi420 on Tue, 01/06/2010 - 3:16pm.

One of the latest controversies within the community of those touched by autism is that of prenatal genetic testing. Some fear that this testing will lead to the termination of pregnancies of ASD fetuses, with the result being in effect the elimination of future generations of potentially ASD children. As such, they oppose the development of such tests, and are campaigning to oppose their use. I am not opposed to such tests, or any prenatal genetic testing, for a number of reasons.

When ‘we’ were pregnant, as part of the routine ultrasound process we had a nuchal translucency test, plus the fetal nose scan. The results were negative. We also had the AFP/Triple Screen test. The results came back positive. We received the call to come in for counseling.

During the counseling process we were informed that the results of the AFP/Triple Screen indicated that our baby had an elevated risk of having Down Syndrome. The risk was not ‘through the roof’, but it was definitely there. The next step would be to conduct an amniocentesis, i.e. the definitive test. We were informed that the reported risk of this test was fetal death in up to 1% of cases. How did we want to proceed?

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Response to prenatal autism test - What would you do?

Submitted by Proud-Mum on Sun, 22/03/2009 - 11:36am.
What do I think? Abominable! that's what I think! Thank you for bringing this article to light Kerry. It is a very interesting concept. I suppose if I didn't already have a child with ASD I might have said yes, if you can test for it, go ahead and do it. Don't think that would have lead to a termination though as we considered while I was pregnant what we would do if prenatal tests detected Downs and decided it would not change our decision to have our baby anyway. It would just prepare you for it I suppose. I read quite a lot after we got a diagnosis about cause, as everybody probably does, and I still subscribe to the notion that there is a genetic predisposition to ASD with a trigger, which can be different for every child, be it illness, difficulties during labour, vaccines or whatever. If that is true it begs the question, would you terminate if you don't know what the trigger is?!

Interesting research

Submitted by alisonandchester on Thu, 23/07/2009 - 6:09am.

Hi, I must say I agree with proud mum. We talked about the pre-natal testing results when we were preg and knew for us it didn't change the fact that it was our baby no matter what. I am a firm believer that you get what you need, and I absolutely needed to receive this gorgeous little boy into my and my families life. Also I believe that these children are genetically predisposed and that environmental triggers (vacc's, diets etc) play a huge part for them. We can't forget that every child with Autism is also an individual too, so effects are different. However I do love hearing of such research and that research is going on. Hopefully one day it might help our little guys along their journeys : ) Alison