This article on autism came out today. It is a report on research into the causes of autism, one of the growing conditions affecting children in this time. IT CONTAINS PRELIMINARY RESULTS ONLY, and is not a final answer
What horrified me even though the tone of the article was optimistic about beginning to determine causes, with more research to be done, is what the effect of the Republican War on Women, particularly that which limits access of low income mothers to be to decent medical care, might be if the articles and research are confirmed.
Arrrgh!
I don't usually write more than one diary a day, but this has got to be an exception. The risk of producing possibly devastating injury to children is too much.
What the article discusses is the apparent correlation, possibly causation, between a number of not at all uncommon events for the pregnant US woman, including
a fever during pregnancy,
obesity,
hypertension or
any kind of diabetes
during pregnancy, that is, while the child is in utero, and the odds that the child when born will have a version of Autism Spectrum Syndrome, or another development syndrome. Other suspects include
the age ofthe woman,
pre eclampsia during the pregnancy, and
a C section after a difficult delivery involving the risk of infection generating a fever.
The article indicates that while there may be immune malfunctions involved, either causes by an infection not yet identified, or, also possible, the pregnant mother's defective immune reaction to an infection, there shold be optimism because so far it appears that a substantial number of cases are looking like they may be traceable to knowable and possibly treatable/avoidable causes, rather than obscure and difficult ones.
What it does mean is that getting the necessary care is time sensitive, and waiting until after birth is waiting much too late. Its a do it now or live with the consequences sort of thing. Please read the article for a more complete description.
What this research, if confirmed, also means is that it will now be more essential than ever for women with hypertension, any form of diabetes, or pregnancy obesity and other identified causal conditions to get good medical care before and throughout the pregnancy and to avoid any illness or condition that includes fevers.
This is, of course, precisely the sort of care that elimination of PP's general reproductive care, and the like, and cutting back on Medicaid, as the Rs propose, would make less available generally and certainly less available for low income women.
Many low income women have one or more of the three conditions and may not / cannot afford care for them, or care for both the condition and the general costs of pregnancy, and may be exposed to work places and other situations in which they are subject to infections which include fevers, this being a situation where the initial indication is that the distinction between flu, a cold, and a fever is essential. And this sort of now apparently more nearly essential care is not the esoteric specialist kind, but is treatment of relatively common conditions known to most doctors.
It's one thing to have an esoteric cause and another to have a cause which is in the dumb simple and straightfoward treatment portfolio of doctors, as long as the mother in fact sees them and gets treatment. An apparently at least possibly preventable situation, which is less expensive and emotionally damaging to eliminate from the git go than to have to treat for years after the child has been damaged in utero.
That makes more likely that, if the research holds up, this may be or become established as a condition whose occurrence will depend on non esoteric pre obstetrical or obstetrical care specifically, and the availability of the money to pay for it. More complex than vaccinations, but in the same functional area, something where preventive care ahead can limit or eliminate a much worse outcome later.
Given the horrible consequences if the research is correct, this means that prenatal and obstetrical care for all women of a kind commonly available is or may be an important and perhaps essential way to protect a child and the family and community in which that child lives from the disasters of autism,
It also means that restriction of obstetrical medical care for women, especially low income women who may have one of the conditions in higher rates than those who can routinely afford good medical care may have a specific kind of otherwise avoidable long term and horrible consequence.
IMO, what this means is that the fight for Women's Reproductive Health Care over against the Republican attempt to cut it back for the poor and the disadvantaged is that much more important, because this is a syndrome which is beginning to look as if it could be avoided by the very kind of straightforward basic care that Rs intend to deny, and the prevention of which can avoid both the horrible damage to the child, and the horrible financial consequences to the child or the family or the state which will be paying a fortune for a long time for treatment for something which need not have happened at all. The care is needed in any event, so that no matter how the research finally comes out, it needs doing now, while the research is being resolved.
If the research is confirmed, what it means is that the government can provide for the medical care now, which should be happening anyway, or it can pay for the long term consequences later. If it is not, the mothers to be will still be healtier than they would have been in a way we know is needed whatever the research on this shows. Of course, the Rs intend to pay for neither, and have no plan whatever for the long term medical consequences of anything they have determined shall be allowed to happen by reason of Rs' cutting funds for such basic care for women in general and low income women in particular.
Need I say that I encourage all Kossacks and all Dems to fight hard to limit or prevent the Republicans from cutting back on general care for low income women, for this reason among so many others.