Dealing with crushing guilt

February 25, 2019 8:05 PM

Involving special needs, my son, and a stupid decision during pregnancy.

I've thought of asking this question so many times, but it is the source of deep shame so I have a hard time articulating it to anyone other than my husband. I'm hoping for support and ideas, but not judgment.

When I was pregnant with my son, I took all the advice -- vitamins, ate well, didn't drink or smoke, etc. But I am a bit smug and also a bit of a hippie. And this led me astray. I had a short illness (about 24 hrs -- maybe the flu) where I had a mild to moderate fever (between 99 and 100). I called the doctor, he said, take some Tylenol. I really didn't want to take medication -- I am just a medication skeptic, esp. when it comes to pregnancy. So I didn't. I had a rough night but felt better the next day.

Fast forward three years, I have a terrific son. He is wonderful and sweet and we sit on the sofa and cuddle and stare into each other's eyes. But he also a serious speech delay (and probably disorder) -- I thought he was catching up, but no, not yet at least. He's in speech therapy and has also been referred to occupational therapy. Googling around, I found this article, which links delays to untreated fever. Bingo, that's me.

I am absolutely gutted and I think about it all the time -- not so much that my son may struggle or have disabilities, that I feel I could handle -- but that I CAUSED IT! I had Tylenol in my house, my husband brought me some, and I thought I knew better than a doctor. Ridiculous! I hate myself.

Since I read that study, I literally feel like I cannot move on -- and every time I look at my son, I think how much I failed him by ironically actually trying to do the right thing. I have become obsessed with helping him-- paying extreme amounts for every speech therapist/expert, etc. I am driving my husband crazy (who thinks that there is no link at all, probably genetic, and also that he will probably be OK, but he is an absolute optimist).

I'm not sure what the question here, and I hope I'm not just using mefi as a confessional. But I need to find a way to move past the guilt and the blame, so I can also help my son but appreciate him as someone other than the person I love the most that I feel I damaged :(

I'd love any thoughts/readings/suggestions, but hopefully nothing that will make me feel worse than I already feel.

posted by anonymous to Grab Bag (35 answers total)

Ok, you need to chill out. This article itself is clearly telling you in many ways that there is no solid evidence of what it is about to tell you.

A provocative new study suggests untreated maternal fever during pregnancy increases the chance that the child will be developmentally delayed or autistic.

And further down:
Interestingly, the results showed that flu during pregnancy was not associated with greater risks of having a child with autism or developmental delay.

Children have speech delays all the time. You should talk to your child's doctor about this. This was not due to you having a 99 degree fever. There is no way.
posted by Toddles at 8:13 PM on February 25, 2019 [132 favorites]

Yeah, this one article about one study with a small sample size isn’t a resounding declaration that this is a real phenomenon. You have done nothing wrong and have nothing to blame yourself for.

ALSO: As an adult with autism, I sometimes have to yell at my parents for feeling guilty about whatever thing they think they did that made me this way. I have to remind them that I like being this way and having supportive and accepting parents is way better than having guilty and self-flagellating parents fretting over what could have been.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:23 PM on February 25, 2019 [57 favorites]

Well I just did a quick search and apparently Tylenol use during pregnancy is also linked to speech delays.
So...Damned if you do, damned if you don't right.
A link doesn't necessarily mean a cause either. It's just like a possible clue, or a point of interest to futher look into or make note of.
Can you reason with yourself over your worries with things like that Tylenol doesn't even guarantee fever reduction to within a certain range? That your fever could've gone out of range during sleep even? People need to sleep.
I'd kindly recommend therapy to get the obsessing under control over not having a perfect child before that damages him far more than not using Tylenol theoretically could have.
He's still only 3, he will probably be just fine.
posted by OnefortheLast at 8:24 PM on February 25, 2019 [38 favorites]

I just wanted to say that you're okay. Really. You did what you felt was right at the time. No use beating yourself up at all. We're all human, we all make decisions, some that we regret later. Really, it's OK.

I can't attest to the medicinal knowledge or whatnot, as I am not a doctor, but I really doubt a (relatively) minor fever and no Tylenol could have caused this. So, I'd disengage from those thoughts, tell your inner voice/anxiety to please understand that you did not cause this, and let go.

Please give yourself a hug and be kind to yourself. It's okay, you're okay, we're all in this together as the collective human race. :)
posted by dubious_dude at 8:30 PM on February 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

I really applaud you for the last part of your statement, where you acknowledge that you have to get past this for the good of your son.

Your son gets zero benefit from this. Like Jon_Evil, I have also dealt with a parent whose response to a medical condition that just happens was to think that it was something preventable, that something went wrong with me, that someone was to blame and that there was a way to fix it.

It made me feel like I had to hide my medical condition, and it set me back a few years in what I think is a healthy approach to it: I view it as a lifelong condition that I have to accept, and instead of trying to hide it or pretend it doesn't exist or be ashamed of it, I should try to make it was gentle as possible on myself and cope with it in a way that causes me the least stress.

I can't do that when I have to reassure my mom that random events in my childhood didn't cause me to get a disorder that's likely genetic, or when she's blaming herself (or me) for developing it.

Before I learned to self-soothe and cope with my anxiety/obsessions/irrational fears better, I used to hate myself and beat myself up when I remembered a mistake I felt I had made. A thing that helped me is to think "does worrying/stressing/freaking out right now HELP the situation? is it maybe just hurting me as punishment?"

When you start obsessing over this fear, redirect. Tell yourself, I need to chill the fuck out for the good of my son. What I am doing right now is not helping. Stop hurting. Start helping.
posted by Juliet Banana at 8:37 PM on February 25, 2019 [31 favorites]

Hi! Let me tell you about my brother. My brother did not say a single word until he was 3 1/2. Doctors panicked-- he got tested for hydroencephaly, saw doctors about his vocal chords, the works. My mom was strangely fine with it and kept saying that he had a bright look in his eyes. When my brother started to talk, he had a speech defect and couldn't pronounce his Rs and went to speech therapy for a few years.

You might guess where this is going-- he is all grown up, happily married, graduating with his doctorate from Stanford, without a doubt the smartest person I know.

Please forgive yourself.

My friend from high school also didn't speak until he was four, but then he pointed to an onion and said "Gimme dat, I want that." I love that story.

No matter what happens, your son is going to be fine.
posted by athirstforsalt at 8:40 PM on February 25, 2019 [20 favorites]

You are tripping out about medicine because, as you say yourself, you're a medicine skeptic, and it makes you vulnerable to this particular trip. The Actual Reasons Things Happen are a lot more complicated than this, and will not be known by any of us in this life. You didn't do anything to your son. You called a doctor and took his advice exactly like you're supposed to do.

I have some friends whose son had a speech delay and various related problems--despite, incidentally, the fact that they did NOT take Tylenol during pregnancy. It seemed like a huge terrible deal when he was three. Now he's this goodlooking dude just hitting his twenties who plays like nine instruments and is too cool for school. Quit beating on yourself about this, as quick as you can.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:45 PM on February 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is a hard place that many, many parents (especially mothers) find themselves.
If it helps, a one degree uptick in temperature is not really much of a fever. Combine this with a single study that merely suggests a possible link and I really think there isn't enough evidence for you to take on so much guilt.

So, some thoughts that might help you with this
1. When bad things happen, we want to find reasons. Human brains are really wired to look for reasons. When something really important happens like this, it is very hard to think that "it just happened"
2. As parents we feel SO responsible for doing absolutely everything we can to help our kids be their very best. Feeling like you let them down is really crushing. However, trying to hold yourself to that standard leads to pressure and guilt that actually gets in the way. (See Jon_Evil's comment above)
3. While your child does have to deal with a speech delay, try to listen to your husband and not catastrophize. While I don't want you to ignore his issues, you might find it helpful to think about how, as problems go, this isn't so bad. When my kiddo was going through stuff, I had my own "it could be worse" list. I won't give you mine but you might want make up your own.
4. We can only do the best we can. Hard fact of life sometime our best isn't as good as we would like. Sometimes we make the wrong choice. Sometimes we make the best choice we could at the time and it has bad consequences. We still can't do more than our best. Learning to live with that and forgive yourself is one of the challenges of being human.
5. Keep reminding yourself that you undertook a really hard job but you get a really great reward - having your son to cuddle with on the sofa. Hold tight to that joy!
posted by metahawk at 8:46 PM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

FWIW, I'm a speech-language pathology grad student and in my Early Childhood Language Disorders class, when we learned about taking case histories one of the things our professor emphasized is that language delays/disorders rarely, if ever, stem from a single cause. Gender, genetics, prematurity, environmental factors - there are just so many things that could play a role. Please be kind to yourself; I sincerely doubt any reasonable professional would say that your son's speech delays are directly attributable to you not taking Tylenol when you had a fever.
posted by DingoMutt at 8:53 PM on February 25, 2019 [23 favorites]

Oh, honey. What you described isn't even a fever! You've got to be over 100.4! And anyone with older kids who's pregnant has measured higher than that once or twice in any pregnancy that happens in the winter, because kids bring germs home from school. I had much higher fevers while pregnant with both my kids and neither has any delays.

You simply didn't cause a developmental delay by ignoring a slightly elevated temperature. It doesn't make sense. If the causation were clear, a huge proportion of children would be just as delayed. And, as someone pointed out above, Tylenol has also been linked to some developmental delays.
posted by potrzebie at 9:09 PM on February 25, 2019 [38 favorites]

I don't think there is convincing evidence that your actions during pregnancy caused his current issues, but regardless talking to a professional counsellor about this guilt a few times might be helpful.
posted by chiquitita at 9:12 PM on February 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

Do you have any other symptoms of anxiety disorder? Because this is a symptom of anxiety disorder or similar. You don't have to feel like this, and getting it taken care of before your child is old enough to internalize this narrative would be a huge gift to you and to him.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:13 PM on February 25, 2019 [32 favorites]

I have a friend whose brother did not say one word until he was about 3.5, at which point, in the middle of dinner he said, "Ummm who made these pickles?" It was a notable event, which they were still speaking of decades later. Pediatricians give infants Tylenol, without fear of oto toxicity or developmental delays. Your kid has a great mother, and is a great kid. Just make a pleasant experience of naming things. It will come.
posted by Oyéah at 9:50 PM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

If you'd taken the Tylenol, maybe you'd be worried that that had caused the speech delay. Actually, there's a study linking Tylenol to delays too! There's no winning in the blame-yourself game. Get some help for yourself.
posted by noxperpetua at 10:05 PM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Here are some points that may make you feel better:

1- The journal the research was published in has an Impact Factor of 3.4. If I were to let a research article make me feel shitty as a parent, it would at *least* have to be in Science (IF=37.2) or Nature (41.6).

2-More seriously, I read the actual article. It's a case control study. They are low in the hierarchy of evidence! It's not a cohort study (where they compared two groups: those with the exposure factor (fever) and those without) and watched to see what outcomes were in those two groups for ASD/autism rates. Rather, they asked mothers in the two cases (with kid with ASD vs not) whether they had the flu when they were pregnant. You cannot calculate the relative risk given exposure to prenatal flu from a case control study (why they only reported calculated "odds ratios," or "OR" in the study).

3- Recall bias is huge! The study authors mention this in the section where they discuss threats to validity. These were mothers who were pregnant 3 to 5 years ago from when they were asked. Recall bias may mean that mothers of children who are neurotypical may be less likely to hold on to the memory of details of their pregnancy, like whether they took an anti-pyretic like Tylenol or not. And recall bias is a systematic error! While the study claims increased strength due to a larger sample size than a previous case control study, systematic error is not reduced by increased sample size (unlike random error). I mean, it's a little better that the reduced the range to mothers of kids below 5...the prior study was asking mothers to recall whether they had the flu up to 20+ years prior (!!!).

4- Speaking of threats to validity, whether they had the "flu" or "fever" was self-reported. No temperature cutoff, no diagnosis, just what people remembered and would self-classify as "flu" or "fever" for themselves. Notice that some people above wouldn't consider 99F really much of fever, whereas you would. Self-report bias is another thread to validity.


Not to shit on this study*--it's interesting data that informs what further research might pay off. These other studies are more time consuming and costly to run (which is why studies like these are useful). But as for what it means to YOU...I'd say off of this study, you can neither accept nor reject your hypothesis that you caused your son's speech delay by not taking Tylenol. Nobody can at this point! The

Consider the just world fallacy's impact in making you want to come to that conclusion. As bad as you feel to think that you caused your son's issues, consider that you may be holding on to that because the alternative is far more scary. As parents, it's hard to think about that fact that unpleasant, bad, unfair, damaging, or fatal things can happen to our kids...who don't deserve it, who don't do anything to bring it upon themselves. It's calming to think that if these things happen, it's for a reason that can be sussed out...not because sometimes good people (or sweet toddlers) have things happen to them not due to anybody's fault or actions. Just because the world is sometimes like that. Consider talking to someone if those thoughts are getting to be intrusive to your life or enjoying your son.

*but please, feel free to shit on the pop science article in psychcentral.com you linked that reported on the study results. Its title (and content) imply that the study found causation...which the study researchers never claimed. The study design could at MOST find association/correlation, which is what they published. That online article is very flawed.
posted by neda at 10:15 PM on February 25, 2019 [38 favorites]

Being a parent is so hard because you always want to do the best for your child and the right decision is so unclear. Hindsight can be 20/20 but it can also make you question everything and feel guilty. All kids struggle in some way or another because that's how we grow as people. FWIW I have three siblings who were super bright from the start; another sibling and I had major learning disabilities but, decades later, we both are very successful and have high IQs. But if we didn't? That'd be OK, too, because all children and adults are inherently important and valuable to society in different ways. Hooray for being one human among the billions of intellectually diverse people on this planet!

I agree that this is probably your anxiety talking. That's right, your illness, not your son's. I am not yet a parent myself but I suffer from intense anxiety that I didn't start effectively treating until the past few years. When you're so used to worry, it's hard to tell what's a healthy amount of worry versus too much. This is definitely too much, and it's OK -- you are a loving, caring mom who would do anything for her child!! But you deserve support and treatment, too. It'll be best for you, your husband, and your child. Next time you're at the doctor's -- for yourself or at your child's pediatrician -- mention what you're written here. There is no shame in asking this: it's brave and good you did on MetaFilter! See what they say and please consider getting that medical support yourself. Treatment could be medication or a talk therapy like CBT; once you've gotten the referral and seen a professional, you can take things from there. I wish you luck and lots of love, support, and validation!
posted by smorgasbord at 10:47 PM on February 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

I came here to say what Neda said. The study is interesting but not particularly convincing scientifically speaking. Even if you ignore some of the inherent issues with the study design that Neda pointed out it still doesn’t demonstrate causation between fever and ASD/speech delay. Meaning this study doesn’t prove that fever causes ASD. It simply suggests that there “might” be a correlation between the two things.

This article is not saying your fever caused a speech delay. Your parent-guilt is telling you that your fever caused this speech delay and parent-guilt gets it wrong all the time. Ask me how I know.
posted by teamnap at 10:55 PM on February 25, 2019

It's not possible that a temperature of a hundred degrees injured your child. I also consider the link between Tylenol and delayed speech development to be ludicrous.
Don't be the parent who subjects a child to so much scrutiny and so many tests that they can't be themself. Relax, and figure that until you have real evidence of a problem, it's better to be calm. I know several children who are in therapy for problems that either don't exist or which will almost certainly go away.
This is personal experience - I've raised children, and the ones you are prepared for aren't the ones that will blindside you. And those can be dealt with as well.
Also I didn't speak until I was close to four. My mother had me examined by every specialist she could find. When I was ready I talked, in complete sentences. There's a huge distance between taking your time and being unable to speak. In the absence of other real symptoms, there's no reason whatsoever to believe your child won't learn to speak. I've never met one who didn't.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 11:16 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Years ago, in an article about how language choices discourage normalization of breastfeeding (link, but it's not directly relevant), it talked about how women assume guilt:

Women's (nearly) automatic assumption of guilt is evident in their responses to this scenario: Suppose you have taken a class in aerodynamics. You have also seen pilots fly planes. Now, imagine that you are the passenger in a two-seat plane. The pilot has a heart attack, and it is up to you to fly the plane. You crash. Do you feel guilty?

The males I asked responded, "No. Knowing about aerodynamics doesn't mean you can fly an airplane." "No, because I would have done my best." "No. I might feel really bad about the plane and pilot, but I wouldn't feel guilty." "No. Planes are complicated to fly, even if you've seen someone do it."

What did the females say? "I wouldn't feel guilty about the plane, but I might about the pilot because there was a slight chance that I could have managed to land that plane." "Yes, because I'm very hard on myself about my mistakes. Feeling bad and feeling guilty are all mixed up for me." "Yes, I mean, of course. I know I shouldn't, but I probably would." "Did I kill someone else? If I didn't kill anyone else, then I don't feel guilty." Note the phrases "my mistakes," "I know I shouldn't," and "Did I kill anyone?" for an event over which these women would have had no control!

You made the choices you did based on your best understanding of the information available to you at the time. Don't beat yourself up over it, even if you later realize that some of that info, or some of your understanding, was wrong. All parents are stuck making decisions on partial and inaccurate info. It's not like there's an option for "do this, and your parenting choices will lead to the best possible outcome."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:24 PM on February 25, 2019 [8 favorites]

Sing Or Swim, I think you misread the question. OP did not take the doctor's advice (i.e. she did not take the Tylenol).
posted by aielen at 1:08 AM on February 26, 2019

You had a very low fever. Not the level of fever that is of concern in a pregnant woman and many guidelines suggest calling the doctor only if the fever is above 100.4 - 101.0.

It’s incredibly unlikely that your fever caused any significant outcome in your child. Some children are speech delayed and you’re doing all the right things by getting your child early intervention. Please don’t read dubious studies in an attempt to find a way to blame yourself for something that occurs in many children for unknowable reasons.

You have not damaged your child. Please consider getting professional help for anxiety and intrusive, obsessive thoughts. It sounds like you’re suffering a lot and could use some help with that.
posted by quince at 1:17 AM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

It was your anxiety that had you Googling in the first place, right?

I think the answer to the question of getting over things will probably involve some support, like therapy and maybe a mom’s group. But here’s a start: as a self-professed smug hippy, you engaged in some magical thinking of the kind many of not most of us do: if you do everything “right” or”naturally,” your child will somehow escape difficulties. But that’s all this is, a fantasy. We all make important decisions - seatbelts, lead paint - but you cannot extend this into either a mystic charm of protection or a bright line of causation. You’re really fighting this realization here by digging in to your obsession and all the therapies but...the thing you’re not looking at is...what if you accepted that you are not control of this outcome?

My son developed cataracts and we missed them and there was a possibility he would end up with very limited vision. I had so many feelings. I found a podcast about a guy who is blind and echolocates on The American Life and he talked about how his mom let him ride a bike. He talked a lot about limitations being externally imposed.

What if you let go of the idea that you have to find someone and something to blame, and just sat with the idea that your child may have an atypical development curve, that “bad things” sometimes just happen, and that while you are also getting him help, you can build a family where part of your strength is that you accept and even celebrate his unique set of strengths and weaknesses, while seeking support?

What if you accepted that you too have strengths and weaknesses and it is okay to have been Tylenol hating you and it’s ok to be obsessive Googler you, but now it’s time to get help to let this guilt go and move on? Who would you call? Do that this week.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:26 AM on February 26, 2019 [7 favorites]

While your son should continue to go to the recommended speech and occupational therapy, you need to ease up on pursuing every last possible Hail Mary treatment for your son and put your own oxygen mask on immediately by getting therapy for yourself. Your anxiety and intrusive thoughts are suffocating you. If you cannot see through to getting treatment for your own happiness (I'm a mom, I get it, we aren't supposed to want happiness and comfort for ourselves), do it for your kid. This degree of guilt and worry is not sustainable for you and you are going to burn out. Please find a therapist.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:46 AM on February 26, 2019 [10 favorites]

So, I debated answering this but I am your worst case scenario and I have no guilt.

During my pregnancy, bending to carry heavy weights after climbing stairs repeatedly caused my membranes to rupture in the second trimester. I was supposed to be on light duties but I had four kids, a full-time job and was in a very difficult situation. I had to travel for work the next day to a country with limited medical facilities and spent the week knowing something was terribly wrong.

My daughter was born underweight and quite premature, requiring surgery. She had failure to thrive at first and she now has several learning difficulties, some strongly linked to her early birth.

So I am explicitly what you fear. But I have no guilt. Because at the same time, I was doing every thing I could physically do to keep the pregnancy viable, keep my other four children safe, hold onto my job and survive. And even if I hadn't - on the NICU ward, I learned painfully that there were babies who thrived and babies who struggled and it didn't seem to make a difference which parent was there every day, which parent had done everything perfectly right, because sometimes the babies just got hurt. Even if I had been negligent, she could have been fine. And even if I had been 'perfect', she could have died. It was brutally clear on that ward.

Having a child is intensely vulnerable and if you have anxiety, that's a huge whirlpool that drags you down under. There's no way to protect them fully and so anything you can do becomes magnified in importance.

I had undiagnosed anxiety at the time she was born and PTSD. I'm now on medication and had several years of therapy. It's still pretty rough at times.

But the difference between how I feel as a parent now and a parent then is staggering. I love my children as fiercely but I don't obsess over them helplessly all the time now. I don't spend the night going over all my mistakes and blaming myself while planning frantically for every possibility. I'm not always exhausted by fear.

I can't remember very much of her first year or my other children's childhoods through the haze of anxious trauma. I urge you to talk to someone professional. This may need medication for a while. You can have a much better experience of mothering with support.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:42 AM on February 26, 2019 [46 favorites]

You didn't have a fever - under 100 isn't really a fever. I just took my kid to the pediatrician the other day, her temp was 99.4 and they informed me that is not a fever. Normal body temp range includes 99 degrees.

That said, I want to echo the comments that you should maybe talk to someone....as someone who has anxiety, this kind of thought process and guilt really sounds like anxiety, and you can get help (talk therapy and other non-medication options work!). Please believe me - it is so much better on the other, treated side!
posted by john_snow at 7:06 AM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

I went back and looked at actual publication upon which this is based, and honestly I'm a little creeped out by the fact that they didn't define 'fever'. They just asked "did you have a fever?" and let respondents decide what that meant. I have 2 kids in school and i can tell you that the school definition of a fever is above 100 degrees. The pediatrician doesn't want to hear from you unless it's 100.4.

If I were being asked to report fevers during pregnancy I wouldn't have said I even had one if my temperature was in the 99-100 range.

Also knowing what i know of physicians and OB care and so on, I'm pretty sure your doctor meant "take some tylenol if you think it will make you feel better", not "TAKE TYLENOL NOW AT ALL COSTS".

Wherever your child's developmental delays arose from, it is an incredibly complex soup of factors and it is definitely not this one incident that is not even really an incident.
Adjusting to the idea of your child needing therapy is really hard - I have one who's had OT, social work, and is about to start speech - but it doesn't change the fact that your kid is super awesome. And your kid is at an age where therapy can make SUCH A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Your kid is going to be ok. I strongly endorse the idea of you getting professional help to work through this - I had to do that at one point and it was incredibly helpful. Adjusting to being the parent of a kid with special needs is hard! But you can do it.
posted by telepanda at 7:06 AM on February 26, 2019 [3 favorites]

Agreed with all of the above that your anxiety is getting in the way, and I hope you can get some help for it (as an also medication-resistant sort I've found talk therapy hugely helpful). Also, this may never be something you need, but the book Parenting without Panic is about parenting kids with special needs. [Disclosure: I know the author, but also, her message about getting support as a parent seems like something that might help you.]
posted by ldthomps at 7:11 AM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is the kind of anxiety I'm prone to; huge sympathy.

On this issue, I thought the research related to higher fevers than that. (On preview, i see that this particular study didn't even set a cutoff.) But during a previous pregnancy, I remember calling in with worries of my own due to a minor fever and seem to remember my OB or an advice nurse telling me to stop worrying about temps under a certain level. (I think it was 101?) They said that a lot of people get elevated body temperature as a result of being pregnant. Also, all development stuff is highly timing dependent. So the idea that your minor fever was enough and corresponded with that window seems highly unlikely. And suppose your fever even related and suppose you had taken the Tylenol. How long would it have taken your fever to go down? Would it have come back while you were asleep? Would it have made any difference? You made one decision, but was it actually in your power to change the outcome?

More concretely, I'd ask: suppose what you fear were true (which I don't think it is, but just suppose). So what? I don't know if it helps to hear this, but if you told me that science determined with 100 percent certainty that your decision caused this, (which is the opposite of what i really think), it still wouldn't change how I thought about your situation. This wasn't you being malicious or negligent; this was you making the best decision you could at the time. You probably thought skipping medicine was safer or at least that the medicine was recommended for your comfort (which it probably was). Nobody is all-knowing. Nobody can predict the future. Nobody is perfect. Life is ultimately outside all of our control. If you unwittingly made this mistake, I think you should have compassion for yourself as a poor mortal who is bumbling through this world the same as everyone else.

But I don't actually think this tiny elevation of your temperature for an extremely short period had any impact. If it's hard for you to take that in, then maybe therapy could be useful, and there are also some CBT techniques that are easy to learn at home and are surprisingly helpful. Also, there are some interesting books out there. I read about 5 percent of Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism and still found it helpful just to think about how perfectionism, shame, and an overstated sense of control intersected.

I hope all these comments are helpful. Please go easy on yourself.
posted by slidell at 8:03 AM on February 26, 2019

As a fellow parent whose kid ended up in Early Intervention for some (physical, in her case) delays that aren't clearly linked to any particular diagnosis--and yet hung around for an agonizingly long time, with weekly therapy not closing the gap with where she was supposed to be--I understand.

Don't under-estimate how psychologically hard it is to be sitting in the uncertain space you're in right now, with no diagnosis and no progress. (I mean, I am guessing your kid is making some progress, but probably not catching up like you expected given there isn't a clear disorder on the table.) Any chance that your rumination on this topic is linked to your son getting a formal or informal assessment and you learning that he's still as behind (or not as caught up) as you had thought he would be after the time he's spent in speech therapy? I remember how crushing it was when my kiddo got an assessment around her first birthday, and I was fully expecting the PT to say she was close to being caught up, but hearing that she was still sitting at the same 25% delay that we'd been dealing with since she was a tiny baby. Give yourself some time to grieve and be upset about how much work you've been doing on this, and not seeing the progress you really hoped and expected to see.

Also: in retrospect, my anxiety definitely played into how much anguish I had when my brain started to ruminate on what caused my kid's delays. (I also have a low fever--around 100.5--near the end of my first trimester that I couldn't stop thinking about as a potential cause.) When I went to a few sessions of therapy and got some tools to help with the anxiety, it didn't necessarily stop me from wondering why my kid is having these issues. But the amount of emotional pain and rumination is way, way less - it's more like a "huh, I wonder if it's related to X" and I don't feel guilt or shame or sadness about it, just mild curiosity about something that is probably unknowable. If there's any chance you have other things going on in your life that are ramping up your anxiety or making you less able to cope well with anxiety, I am guessing you'd see a lot of improvement if you can work on those issues.

Good luck, I hope you get to the other side of this soon.
posted by iminurmefi at 8:22 AM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

99 or 100 is not a temperature elevation that could cause any kind of trauma to an unborn child. You can listen to this stranger on the Internet when I tell you that you did absolutely nothing wrong.

And more to the point, there are millions of kids out there whose parents actually DID do things that could harm their kids and a lot of those kids are still fine regardless. And there are a lot of parents out there who did not a damn thing wrong and their kids are, for one reason or another, atypical in some way. Parenting involves some measure of learning to accept chaos into your life, and this is just one of those things.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 8:36 AM on February 26, 2019

Normal body temp range includes 99 degrees.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Very few people have a rock-steady temperature of 98.6F every second of every day. Many people regularly wake up in the morning with a temp of less than 98.6, and by evening have a temp of 99. This is absolutely normal. 99 or even 99.5 is not a fever by any definition with which I am familiar. Please stop torturing yourself.
posted by RRgal at 9:51 AM on February 26, 2019

If every single woman who had a mild fever for one day of her pregnancy gave birth to a child with significant and permanent language delays, human language would not be able to exist. There just wouldn't be enough people who were able to learn to talk. We wouldn't be able to reliably transmit language to our children at all.

Also, think of all the women who gave birth before tylenol existed. Many of those women possibly had a mild fever at some point during pregnancy. And yet we don't see a huge change in child language acquisition when fever reducing medications became ubiquitous.

Look, this really sucks. I wasn't anywhere near as diligent as you during my pregnancy (my kid is made of big gulps and string cheese because they were all I could keep down for months), and every once in a while he will deal with something and I will wonder if it's somehow my fault. We just spent close to six months in star band hell because he had a flat head. I blamed myself constantly and continue to blame myself. I put him in the bouncer too much when he was a newborn. I didn't do enough tummy time. I didn't demand that the pediatrician refer us to a plagiocephaly specialist as soon as I noticed it, which meant we didn't get the helmet as soon as we could have. I spent most of my pre-kid career, including my pregnancy, as a freelance creative type, meaning the insurance we had access to early on was shitty, and the referral and ultimate helmet fitting took a long time to schedule. Which prolonged the amount of time and reduced the potential for real results. Now we're done with the helmet, and sometimes people still notice his head has a flat spot. Every time that happens, I can't stop myself from thinking "my kid is going to be a misshapen freak for life, and it's all my fault." Even though, intellectually, I know that most kids who deal with plagiocephaly (whether they get optimal helmet use or not) grow up to have completely normal shaped heads, and it's fine.


So, I don't know. This aspect of having kids is hard. So the only advice I'll leave you with is that you're doing a great job. You are an amazing mom to an amazing kid.
posted by the milkman, the paper boy at 10:15 AM on February 26, 2019 [4 favorites]

The medication chapter of Expecting Better by Emily Oster is very good. Definitely worth 10 minutes to read in the library/book store. The whole book is very authoritative and calming, and is kind of a reaction against alarmist pregnancy literature (such as What To Expect When You're Expecting, and the kind of context-free research you've apparently found online).
posted by caek at 11:18 AM on February 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

You deserve a hug, and then another hug. Stuff happens; you can't control everything. You sound like a loving, thoughtful Mom doing her very best who has nothing to feel such guilt about. Truly. I wish I had a magic wand to absolve you of guilt.
posted by theora55 at 11:34 AM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wow, a lot of good answers and wisdom in this thread. I hope you take the time read them carefully. Adding my answer to the others who have said no single incident caused this to happen to your son, and his developmental delays are not a punishment on either you or him.

Also, severe anxiety sufferer here, and I easily recognize you as a fellow traveler. It only took me 44 years to try it, but therapy helped me. It can probably help you, too.

Finally, your situation is universal and so common to human experience that actual Jesus himself answered your question more than 2000 years ago. I think that was before Ask Metafilter was invented.
posted by seasparrow at 1:40 PM on February 26, 2019 [2 favorites]