Article on labor difficulties and sensory/motor issues.

Silverman is a pretty respected professional

Interesting, isnt it?

I have read of a correlation with breech presentations and vestibular issues. Since the fetus SHOULD know to turn before birth, some feel it is an indication that something isn’t developing correctly from the very beginning

My son was breech and C-section. But no pitocin or big head here!!!!

I need to inquire specifically about pitocin when I do my intakes for Early Intervention. We ask about anesthesia and medications during pregnancy but I never say the word “pitocin” and I wonder if moms dont think to mention it

I need to start asking in a more specific manner. We certainly see our share of spectrum little ones :(

Thanks, I didn’t know of Silverman so I appreciate you weighing in. : )

My son is a first born, large baby. I did have pitocin, and he was stuck but no forceps or very long delivery. He also had neonatal varicella , which has interested some of our doctors.

I would take this article with many grains of salt; all of these things(giftedness, LD, long labor, pitocin use) could be just associated, not causal. Prolonged hypoxia(lack of oxygen) certainly is associated with brain damage, but on a much more significant level than is seen in LD. If you have concerns, a stronger link is genetics, ie family history of LD, or other dev. issues.

In my situation, my daughter was born so quickly (my fourth) the doctor hadn’t arrived yet. So the nurse and I both caught her as she emerged. She was completely purple and there was no opportunity to remove the fluids from her throat. They had to give her oxygen. She pinked up but had purple tinged fingers for a day or so.

My daughter seems to have text book examples of dyslexia. She has dysgraphia (dyscalculia?) and definite sequencing problems to name of few.

I don’t know much about the individual who wrote the article, but my daughter seems like one more with an LD and a complication at birth :cry:.

had major labour problems — 28 hours then section, with a nurse ‘pushing’ him back up the birth canal so they could remove him — was not his head that was stuck, but his shoulders! Also pitocin for a week before which finally worked on the fourth application (a double!) So maybe you’d say ‘oooh, look, ANOTHER ONE…’

But I don’t go there…why does he not have other CP-like problems? Why does my NT nephew not have any LD’s when the labour story was even worse — pitocin for failure to proceed after water broke, then an emergency C after 18 hours hard labour, as he was in distress and they were ‘lined up’ for one gyne…spent 48 hours in special care, hooked up to antibiotics and monitors, etc. But no LD’s.

I’m with Victoria…maybe some problems are due to ‘damage’. But I tend to think my Grandfather’s story of his mother collapsing in tears at the kitchen table when he simply could NOT ‘learn his letters’ in 1913, is more likely the ‘root cause’ of my son’s difficulties — just made to think that way! My granddad DID learn to read and write, very well, though he didn’t get very good at it until about Gr. 8, and had to work VERY hard all through school.

We have variation in intelligence, learning styles, memory, etc. because diversity makes our species stronger. I read somewhere that MIT is nicknamed ‘dyslexia U’ because such a high percentage of dyslexics are also talented for visual-spatial intelligence.

If I had a nickel for every engineer I’ve met that couldn’t tell the difference between two, too, and to or their, they’re and there…Just because some teacher or some psych says it is a ‘disability’ doesn’t necessarily make it so — perhaps it is simply a ‘difference’. Something that makes our species more viable for long-term survival…

Sorry, I’ll stop ranting now…but this is one of those things that pushes all my buttons…

I’m going to have to ask my mother about the details of my birth. Let’s just say that my lawyer buddy still calls me bighead and as things worked out during and after childbirth I’m an only child.

I’ll find out tomorrow since it’s her 80th birthday and we’re taking her out for lunch and dinner. Maybe my dad will let me pay for once. :)

John

Wow, I forgot how much I missed you girls not coming here.

I will add that my son had hypoxia (decrease in oxygen) during labor as manifested by meconium in my water as it broke and a decrease in heart rate while I was in labor. I did not have pitocin.
Oddly though, I can’t say this is a cause. There are just way too many similarities between my dear dyslexic husband and my dear dyslexic son. I just see so much that screams genetic. They both could not do some of the exact visual therapy expercises like difficulty looking up and both could not coordinate their tongue with their eyes.

We just finished almost 2 years of vision therapy (with breaks) I see an unbelievable difference. He still can’t spell and organization is a strain but he consistantly scores the highest in his class on most tests, even math.

I was at a meeting last year with my son and the school psychologist was harping about his spelling. I leaned in to tell her that my dear husband sitting beside me can’t spell but somehow became the vice president at a major corporation.

I didn’t mention the fact that he snagged a beautiful trophy wife, but hey, that was obvious. LOL

I’ve missed you too!!! Had an easy year last year…with a teacher who I’m pretty sure has ‘been there, done that’, maybe not enough to be labled LD but enough to understand kids like ours!

Spelling is still a challenge for us but it’s getting better…still nowhere near grade level expectations. AND we lost out in the teacher lottery —ours leaves for maternity leave tomorrow! But I didn’t like her anyway — I smell a distinct LACK of sympathy for strugglers…one of those who thinks ‘trying harder’ will do the job. (as if 2-3 hours HW a night is not ‘trying’!) Our rotation teachers seem pretty good tho, so we will be hoping that the new teacher is more ‘our sort’. I am hanging back though — so far he is running C- overall, as far as I can tell, and that is OK for first term. He is NOT a motivated type like yours, and the lower expectation seems to be MORE motivating for him — go figure!

Anyway, good to see you posting…Have a great weekend…Thanksgiving up here, so I’ll be gone til Tuesday…

Linda, Where the heck have you been?

Nice to see you weigh in on this topic!

Good to be back Karen!

The teacher lottery, oh yes we play that every year. The jury is out on the ones we have now.

One is a aging hippy. I like that! I am just not sure about the other.

Holy Moly…. I can tell you that I had a 12 hour labor with lots of pitocin (low pressure front came in and about 12 of us went into labor at the same time and they were trying to get me moving faster). Baby was 3 weeks early, born with purple fingertips that stayed that way for a couple of days and was also hypoglycemic (which they straightened out with IV drips). He weighed 6 lbs 5 oz, but I’m pleased to say that the minute he hit the air, he started gaining weight and is a big strapping boy now.

I don’t think that theory is too far fetched though. All it takes is a tiny amount of brain damage to cause a child to have problems, right? And how easy would it be to get minor brain damage during birth, whether from a drug or that whole head squashing/birth canal process. Maybe if a kid was already pre-disposed to having some issues, that might make it worse? I don’t know. But it sounds interesting.

[quote=”Linda F.”]I was at a meeting last year with my son and the school psychologist was harping about his spelling. I leaned in to tell her that my dear husband sitting beside me can’t spell but somehow became the vice president at a major corporation.

I didn’t mention the fact that he snagged a beautiful trophy wife, but hey, that was obvious. LOL[/quote]

Thanks for this post… this is SO FUNNY! :-)

It is nice to know someone gets me!

Sometimes I just wonder.

ttt

Interesting article. My DS is probably not gifted but he has/had extensive motor/sensory integration delays. DS has a very large head like his Mom :D and I was induced with Pitocin. But my labor was fast and easy. From the start of the Pitocin to delivery was 6 hours. I was in active labor for 3-1/2 hours, had a 20 minute break before I felt the urge to push, and pushed for 10 minutes. DS had fine Apgar scores.

But from the very beginning I always felt as if he wasn’t neurologically mature. He was a high needs baby, always had to be held, very fussy, motor development at the high end of normal, etc…. But he learned to ride a bike very well before the age of 2.

Really didn’t have any noticeable delays until Kindergarten. Didn’t know about sensory integration then (5 years ago) and honestly had never heard of it except in reference to autism until a month or 2 ago.

DS displays classic signs of SID/SPD however you want to label it. And the more I uncover about his differences (hate to call them deficiencies) the more I see it as a sensory integration problem.

Im the one who works in Early Intervention who said it would be interesting to specifically ask moms if they had pitocin. We ask dozens of questions but never mention that word. Since our questions are in a computer screen form, I have to actually remember the pitocin question without a prompt(not good-LOL)but Ive got to say the times I have remembered to ask, wow-I have heard a lot of yes’s

Now Im not saying there is some huge connections here. What TRULY amazes me is that with all those questions-many pretty insignificant-we DONT ask what seems to me a pretty important one. And not one mom has thought to mention pitocin when asked questions about medication during pregnancy or did she have anesthesia.

Which makes me think it is something that just isnt being tracked out there

Another common theme-‘she came hard and fast’

Interesting and yes, VERY unscientific. But it has made my interviews a tad more interesting

That is very interesting! I’m going to have to do some more searching on this subject. That is the one differance between my other 2 children and my ds who was just diagnosed with SLD. (I’m still learning and always joked that he had SLD- selective listening disorder. Now my definition was differant- the disorder in which a child, or spouse tunes out a parent or spouse and hears what they want to hear. i.e…. when you tell them to clean their rooms and they say “You never told me to.” I’m sure my kids are the only ones who do this. ) Anyhow- I was induced with ds with pit for about 7 hours. Being a nurse this sounds like something that MAYBE I would do a paper or research project on down the road- well that and since I’m married to a teacher and my ds is involved. If we could figure this out that would be a wonderful help to other mothers down the road.