Autism May Be Triggered By Environmental Facors, Study Says
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While scientists still don’t know exactly what causes autism, there are two new studies that suggest that while heredity is still considered a major factor for triggering autism spectrum disorders, environmental factors and conditions in a mother’s womb may also trigger the disorder.
Dr. Gary Goldstein recently told CBS News that… “we’ve identified lots of vulnerability genes, but not everybody who has them gets autism,” says Goldstein, who works at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.
One study, published in the July 4th issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, found surprising evidence when it came to their research. Upon studying 192 pairs of twins–both fraternal and identical–where one was affected by autism, they found that not unsurprisingly, 77 percent of the male identical twins and 50 percent of the female identical twins had autism, which can be attributed to the fact that identical twins share the same genes. However, what surprised them was the fact that of the fraternal twins, 31% and 31% of males/females, respectively, were found to have the disorder.
Why is this surprising? Because fraternal twins share only as much genetic material as any other sibling. But what they do share is the same womb.
Just gotta try this Creamy Avocado Dip recipe via Momables.com - love how you can spread it on a sandwich in lieu of Mayo! 
Comment by Emily on Oct 30 2011 09:53:20:
The end of this was not accurately reported. 6.7 percent of mothers out of a group of 298 who had autistic children, had been prescribed at least one antidepressant in the year before birth. In the control group 50 mothers had a prescription for an antidepressant, and no autism diagnosis. So, definitely something to further investigate, but the truth is 278 of the mother’s of autistic kids never took an antidepressant, and 50 moms did with no effects on their children. Obviously a lot more factors than this medication,