Autism Among Unvaccinated Children?

[Zamber]

Have there been any cases of Autism among unvaccinated children?
I have tried digging, but I am not really finding much.

I ask because it is highly likely my 4 year old son is autistic. And he is completely 100% vaccine-free. And I am just at a total loss.

You can't imagine how this shatters my world. I unassisted birthed him, breast-fed him, kept toxins out of his body, and kept the knives away...yet I still feel as if I failed him in some way. Logically I know I didn't cause his symtoms/behaviors/etc., but still it is only human to blame yourself in some way at some point. I am working towards healing this attitude and moving forward with the steps that must be taken. I am not one to blindly trust doctors, that is why I want to arm myself with as much information as possible to make informed decisions as we undertake this journey. Any research, or even someone who personally knows someone whos child is autistic and vax free (or is that someone), please respond either to this thread or in a PM. Please no judgemental negative responses - this is hard enough as it is. I put this here because I don't want to hear pro-vaxers wave this around as proof that vaccines don't cause autism, because this doesn't prove anything. I still think there are some cases of autism that have been triggered by vaccines. However, it does put a little war in my head - some autism information that is out there claims you can heal autism by detoxing the metals and junk from vaccines out of your body. So where does that leave me, when my child is vax-free? Ugg, I just feel so alone. :

[battymama]

I went and asked my mum this question, as she has worked for many years with children and adults with disabilities. And her answer was that yes she has seen it, at least in 2 cases where the child was unvaxed and was on the spectrum. I hope this answers you questions, i dont have any more info as she couldnt really give it to me. Much love, please take care of yourself.

[amberg007]

I am so sorry about your son. I understand your grieving 100% but try not to blame yourself. You are a good mama and not in any way responsible for your son's Autism! I work in the Autism field and so have worked with many grieving parents. In terms of the question--I have not met anyone (that I know of) with Autism that was also non-vaxed. That's not to say that it isn't possible since vaxes aren't the only means of toxins entering the body and triggering ASD or other developmental problems. Also, if there truly is a genetic predisposition, then not vaxing can't change that. Look at it this way--your son has an advantage b/c he isn't vaxed he probably doesn't have nearly as much heavy metal/toxin damage as a child with ASD that is vaxed. If I were you I would get and ABA therapist and a DAN doc ASAP and just move forward with the healing. Be strong!

[tanyalynn]

My children are not autistic, but they are mercury toxic, from me. My son has some sensory-seeking behaviors, he's spun, walked in circles, done a variety of things like that at various times, not enough for an SPD/SID diagnosis, but clearly not in a typical kid playing around way. My daughter, interestingly, has absolutely no behaviors like that, but I think it's because her body works more like DH's, who is prone to very different health concerns than I am. DD's only manifestations have been overreactions/irritability/tantrums, like that--not enough to be shockingly different from typical, but more than most kids we know.

For me, the source was my amalgam fillings, and to some extent my mom's and grandmother's. Our health has been going downhill for a few generations now.

We are basically doing biomed for the three of us, vitamin and mineral supps to support our detox pathways (B12, B6, zinc, mag, all that typical stuff) and chelating (oral) to get the mercury and arsenic out. The arsenic may sound odd, but once you (I) am not excreting mercury well, that dampened my ability to get rid of a lot of other environmental toxins, I've been building them up at quite the rate for almost 20 years. There are other sources of environmental contaminants that people may come in contact with, lead from their childhood, some unknown workplace exposure, something else odd. There are lots of routes of exposure, but mine seems fairly common.

It's not your fault. It's not my fault. It's my responsibility to fix, and I take that seriously, but I am strongly convicted that we will get through this successfully and heal together.

Depending on the approach you want, you'll find a lot of people in the Special Needs forum whose children are unvaccinated and autistic (or with other spectrum-related diagnoses) and who feel that nothing at all is wrong.

Anyway, if you want to approach this as a health-related issue, I know a great HCP in Dubuque, Iowa. PM me for her name.

[phatchristy]

I know of two people through, an aquaintance and a friend of the family.

Incidentally both had previously had a vax'd child w/autism.

For the aquaintance her last two sons have autism, first fully vax'd, second none.

The friend of the family had a child with his first wife who was not autistic, then later divorced remarried and had two boys--both with autism, second non-vax'd.

[Racecarma]

Hi - I have a 3 month old (both of my kids are non-vaxed) who appears to be fine so far but things can appear later on. There are plenty of toxins in our foods and drinking water that could potentially cause harm to a developing brain both in utero and after birth. Our drinking water contains jet fuel, recycled pharmaceuticals that are not removed by the waste treatment processes, pesticides and many toxic chemicals. IF a person has at-risk genetics, any amount of toxins could be the culprit. It's not your fault this is happening....it's big business that poisons our food, air and water and causes diseases, chronic illnesses and a multitude of destruction to our planet.

All I can say is what I would do if I were facing this crisis. If my baby started to show signs that worried me, I would be on the phone with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's medical team in Cleveland, Ohio (OsteoMed II). Dr. Tenpenny is also a contributor to Mothering. I have read her books and articles and I would start with her. If you are not close to their practice, maybe they can refer you to someone or even work with you long-distance.

My prayers are with you, your baby and your family.

[Multimomma]

I have unvaxed kids on the spectrum, and my friend does as well. My oldest two are vaxed, and on the spectrum, the younger three SN are not vaxed. They are MILDER cases, social anxiety disorder, adhd, and aspergers, as opposed to severe autism and aspergers/nvld. Could just be luck of the genetic draw.

Either way, my oldest two did react very strongly to vaccines, so autism isn't part of the argument for us, just those reactions.

[gardenmommy]

A good friend's son is autistic. He is totally non-vaxed. She said she just didn't feel right vaxxing him at the time, and now, is super thankful she listened to her instincts.

[eireann]

i'm so sorry. i can't offer much other than my heart goes out to you.

[Gismobabe]

I am very sorry about your son. It is hard to deal with the self doubt and the questions whether you are a good mom. You are a good mom and believe me you will be very glad you do not have to constantely ask yourself if things would have been different if you had not vax'ed your son.
I hope that the diagnosis is incorrect!
Sending my love!

[nwmamas]

I think the only study was the Generation Rescue study (it was a phone study) found about double the rates of autism, OCD, and ADHD in vaxed kids. That means that there are definitely plenty of kids with these challenges in the unvaxed population. http://www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

My DD sounds a lot like your DC, TanyaLopez. She is a lot like me -- not really diagnose-able but with many behaviors that seem spectrumy. She's vax free (vit K and eye ointment, though). But how can you tell which toxins you've *really* avoided? I'm vaccinated on the schedule for my generation. The meat she eats is factory farmed, for the most part, and heavily vaccinated. She drinks the water, she breathes the air, AND shares my spectrummy genes.

[changingseasons]

PP's have already given you a lot of good information. There really are many things that can cause autism, but vaccines seem to be a trigger that overloads the body for many kids. Things like heavy metal toxicity (caused by vax or environment), gut dysbiosis, nutritional deficiencies (which are not your fault- many of these are passed down over generations, and there are gene mutations which cause double the need for certain nutrients), food allergies, and more.

I would highly recommend reading Dr. Kenneth Bock's book- Healing the New Childhood Epidemics. He has some fantastic information in there- he covers many of these causes, as well as giving a thorough healing program.

[KimPM]

My DS is completely unvaxed, (also uncirc'd, natural childbirth with no pain meds, almost exclusively BF'd for the first 2 years, we eat mostly organic food, drink RO filtered water) ... and he's very likely on the spectrum. At the very least he's got SPD and he's a super highly sensitive little boy (like his mommy, only way more so). I did not keep from vaxing him to "prevent autism" ... there are so many, many other reasons to not vax. At this point, I'm so thankful that at least I haven't added to his difficulties by vaxing. We don't need vax damage on top of whatever he's already struggling through. So, what I'm saying is that you're doing the right thing in any case by not vaxing and by doing all those other great things for your DS.

Secondarily, at some point it is helpful to mourn the loss of that "perfect child" you desired and come to accept the unique individual that is your son. It also helps to not compare your child with some other child...I've found that I'm a lot happier if I don't do that. My son is who he is, and I'm just doing the best I can for him. I've given him therapies and supplements where I feel they are appropriate. I do the best I can to "socialize" him, though he's not much good at or interested in socializing. Still, I keep working at it. God willing, he will grow into a fine young man who is not neurotypical, definitely different, but he will have some wonderful qualities.

Finally, it can be hard on your family to deal with the issues associated with being around and raising a child on the spectrum. (I know it's been difficult for our family.) I hope you are getting some extra support in this regard. DO come visit the MDC SN forum, where you will definitely find online support there. What does your DH/DP/SO think about your DS? Is the family on either side supportive?

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by nwmamas

My DD sounds a lot like your DC, TanyaLopez. She is a lot like me -- not really diagnose-able but with many behaviors that seem spectrumy. She's vax free (vit K and eye ointment, though). But how can you tell which toxins you've *really* avoided? I'm vaccinated on the schedule for my generation. The meat she eats is factory farmed, for the most part, and heavily vaccinated. She drinks the water, she breathes the air, AND shares my spectrummy genes.

I think my kids are past the point where they can keep up with their daily exposure, even not using weird chemical cleaners and drinking filtered water and as much as I can do. And the scary thing, to me, is that I think my daughter is just as unable to keep up as my son, it just doesn't manifest at all obviously--the mix of metals from me and DH's better-detoxifying-genes means that it isn't obvious with her. I think they've both passed the tipping point where so many systems are out of balance in their bodies that it would all be just increasing, the way it was for me for at least a couple decades--maybe from even before my amalgams, though. I have some things I always assumed were just me--I really have a hard time with loud and/or busy environments, it's really difficult. I'm absolutely awful remembering faces--I mean, bank robbers WANT me doing the line-up, I'm really noticeably worse than most people. And I've started to wonder how much of this is me, and how much is an exaggeration of me due to the toxic load _I_ was born with. I don't think I'd ever be a big, loud party person, but I think my intolerance for noise and chaos is an exaggeration of who I could've been if things had been different.

Either way--for now, I give the kids a lot of supps to help them keep up with what is unavoidable in our environment, plus then make a dent in their backlog of toxins. Someday I think we can get most of our nutrients just from food. I'm not convinced we can get all of them, not enough to really keep up with our detoxification, but I think we can get fairly close. But not yet.

[k9sarchik]

It sounds like you are a fantastic mama and have done everything right.

I saw this story on The Early Show this morning. Could shed some light on your situation maybe. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...e=search_story

[MyLilPwny]

I think silver dental fillings (amalgams, which are about 50% mercury) can be responsible for autism in unvaccinated children. The more amalgams the mother has, the more mercury she has that gets passed to the fetus and infant while breastfeeding. I'm freaked out that I used to have 8 amalgams and so now I have lots of mercury in my body, plus I was fully vaccinated when I was growing up, and all this gets passed to my children, so if my children end up autistic, I would think that it would have to do with my toxic overload. But thankfully, no autistic signs yet for my daughter that I can notice...

[DoratheExplora]

My son had one vaccine five days after birth. He was dx with autism around 17 months. We attacked it hard with biomedical, dietary, and behavioral interventions. At two years he was dx with PDD-NOS (we highly believe due to our interventions). Now, he is no longer meeting full criteria for PDD-NOS.

It has been a very interesting journey.

That being said, I think that the vaccine/amalgams removed shortly before getting pregnant had more than alot to do with it.

[MountainMamaGC]

Its possible. Toxins are everywhere not just vaccines and some children have a very low threshold that even though they are not vaxed they still get autism. These kids really are the canary in the coalmine.

[MyLilPwny]

I just opened up my email and on Dr. Mercola's most recent newsletter, he has an article called "Why Where You Sleep Matters If You Want a Healthy Baby" and it says:

"Dr. Klinghardt performed a small study showing that autism can actually be predicted based on the EMF levels of your sleeping quarters while pregnant!

He found that if you sleep in strong electromagnetic fields during pregnancy, your child will likely begin to exhibit neurological abnormalities within the first two years of life, such as:

Neurological dysfunction
Hyperactivity
Learning disorders

I’ve previously written about the many dangers of EMF’s, and information-carrying radio waves from cell phones in particular, which have been found to:

Damage your cell membranes
Decrease your intracellular communication by disrupting microtubular connections that allow biophotons to communicate between cells
Increase deposits of heavy metals into your cells, which increases intracellular production of free radicals and can radically decrease cellular production of energy -- thus making you incredibly fatigued"

This also reminds me about what I read in the book "The Infant Survival Guide" about how especially to not use electric blankets, which is very damaging to the fetus.

Mercola also has an article called "How Cell Phones May Cause Autism"

[Zamber]

Thank-you for all of the replies. I do want to clarify that preventing autism was not the main reason we chose not to vaccinate - there are so many other reasons. I had hoped it would be one less worry, a side benefit as it were, but unfortunately that is not the case.

I do have 3 amalgams (if I had the money I would get them taken out), and growing up I was around my fair share of toxins (I shutter looking back). My DH was diagnosed with ADHD along with learning diabilities as a child, and was put on the Feingold Diet for a couple of years (and Ritalin for a year). Other than that, DH's childhood is a bit unknown (he doesn't remember much, and neither does FIL or other relatives). Unfortunately the one person that actually remembered my DH's childhood and developement was his mother, who passed away 4 years ago from ALS (I wish I was able to ask her more before she passed). Both of us were vaccinated as kids, with the flu vax being the exception for me (my Grandfather passed away from reactions to that vax - of course docs denied the connection).

So, basically what I am gathering here is that even though he has no vaxs, detoxing to heal can apply to our situation. I put some feelers out on a DAN doc near us to see what others say about her (we are in the Tucson area). I'll check out the Mercola site to see what information he has on Autism.

Secondarily, at some point it is helpful to mourn the loss of that "perfect child" you desired and come to accept the unique individual that is your son. It also helps to not compare your child with some other child...I've found that I'm a lot happier if I don't do that. My son is who he is, and I'm just doing the best I can for him.

What has been difficult is not so much me or DH accepting him as a unique individual (that has never been so much of an issue, not doing enough to protect him is what I have to get over), it's others who give us a hard time (mostly family - fortunately we moved away from toxic relatives who blame us for his behaviors.). Some relatives have cornered us, saying my son needs to be disciplined more and put on meds (not saying that all medications are bad, I just don't want that as a first resort without a fuller understanding of his needs). Plus the constant comparing him to other little ones in my family - the smug "so-and-so can do this, that, and the other thing...what about Ian?" knowing full darn well he can't (oh, and I love how I was told I am not "qualified" to homeschool a special needs child ).

Anyways, thanks for the show of support - it helps alot, since we don't have much of a support system in place (working to change that).