I have thought long and hard about the causes of autism and I have read a lot about it. I think the causes are maybe quite complex. I think, I mean I did everything I could possibly have done right in my pregnancy. I don’t drink. I have never smoked. I have never drank since I was 18. I ate very healthily when I was pregnant, if a bit too much. And I can’t say that I didn’t do anything different in my pregnancy with him then I did with my daughter. They were both 7lb 10 ozs [laughs] though my son was born a little bit early, only about eleven days I didn’t do anything different I didn’t feel him move around as much as my daughter but that might have been to do with the position of the placenta because it was at the front rather than at the back.

 

It is not surprising she turned into a very good swimmer because she had plenty of practice before she was born, she was very, very active. Robert was not very active and that did worry me a bit when I was pregnant because I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t feeling this baby as much as the previous one, but then he stays pretty much, stays pretty still in bed whereas she is all over the place, so may be it is just different children. The birth was easier, my daughter put me through days upon days of torture with the birth and I had a much more straight forward birth with him. I think there is a genetic link, there may be some sort of environment link. They were both born in Yorkshire there was no difference around that. I was taking antibiotics just before I was pregnant with him. I don’t know whether that was a factor, I had had a chest infection and I was struggling to get over it, whether that played a part, I don’t know whether that was a factor in it but I think there is probably some sort of genetic link there. I can’t say for definite but I think there is some type of genetic link.

 

They were both, my children were breast fed, my daughter till she was nearly two, Robert until he was two and a quarter because he had eczema as a baby he had hardly any cow’s milk at all. He had soya milk and soya yoghurts and things like that when he was a baby and it was only when he was getting towards three that I started letting him have a bit of ice cream with his sister and a bit of like, he used to like Babybels because he liked to unwrap them, so when he was sort of two and half, three, I started letting him have a bit of stuff like that. Not very much because I didn’t want the eczema to come back, but because I had it more or less under control with the allergenics cream I just sort of thought oh well I will just let him have a little bit and see what happens, but the autism aggression started kicking in when he was about three.

 

Whether that has got any links to dairy products, I just really don’t know but he has been brought up vegetarian, although he does eat fish. He is picky and fussy now in some respects with his food. But when he was a baby he wasn’t and really he has always been quite a healthy boy. He has obviously had colds and he has had, you know, chicken pox and things like that. I wouldn’t let him have the MMR. I was ironically, I was determined he wouldn’t have the MMR because I was worried about autism and then low and behold he has autism so I don’t understand that one [laughs]. And I read all the information from Jabs and all the vaccination campaign groups, I read all of that, I wouldn’t let him have the MMR, his sister didn’t have the booster but he did have the baby vaccines when he was like six eight weeks old. I don’t know whether that played a factor. But I just don’t know. His sister had the MMR and she is neurotypical. I don’t understand it. I wish I did understand it.