Pregnancy seems to be _the_ primary critical period for autism. It is one of the unifying threads in all of the research.

I am autistic. I have/experience the fever effects, so my symptoms significantly improve when I have a fever (yes, for the curious HN reader -- the exogenous compound that emulates this effect in susceptible individuals is sulforaphane, that is an entirely original post on its own, however.)

Based on my experience with the fever effect, I would rate being neurotypical, or experiencing neurotypicality as significantly better than autism by itself. I can't really quite elucidate how constantly overwhelming it is not having extra information filtered out, which I believe is the central cause of many downstream autistic effects. You can use models of cPTSD to show how many other symptoms (actively avoiding eye contact, perseverance, 'special interests ' [ mine has been deep learning, and also, ironically, deep learning too ;P I have contributed some impactful open-source work and will keep doing so as long as I can keep up funding to maintain the lifestyle ]) derive from this core. After all, from an information theoretic perspective, there needs to be some unifying set of 'information' unifying a cluster of underlying symptoms in a disorder, the alternatives are just far too unlikely, especially with the specificity in such a high dimensional symptomatic space, (which is, btw, I believe, _the_ principle behind Occam's razor).

Several things in pregnancy that I've seen plausibly proposed as tied to autism: acetaminophen (!), _brain inflammation from viral infection during pregnancy_ (!), glyphosates (), general inflammation during pregnancy.

The for glyphosates is that glyphosate itself is used as a wedge by oftentimes more-unethical companies to prove its use is 'safe'. The compound itself breaks down in about 1-2 weeks -- extremely short, and is metabolized well by animals. Why is a problem?

Aminomethylphosphonic acid. This is a byproduct of glyphosate, and is the main compound of concern. It, unlike, glyphosate, appears to build up in soil and is damaging in parts more than .5 ppm (!!!!). It appears to potentially be metabolized by bacteria, but still is an issue. Studies have shown toxicity, but compared to nearly every other compound out there that I've looked at, there is an uncomfortable dearth of studies about it, especially considering how ubiquitous it is. I remember hearing some rumble about Monsanto applying pressure to studies showing negative effects of Roundup, but I can't speak anything concrete beyond that.

People will often talk about the benefits of autism when I bring up the negative sides of things. I think everything is on a spectrum of 'positive' and 'negative' experiences. For example, some poisons actually are anti-inflammatory in some parts of the body, some beneficial medications are toxic in different ways. They're just compounds, and autism is just a syndrome of being. My brain is autistic, not my soul.

My experience has improved much in meditation, and in getting to a place where my sensations, thoughts, and beliefs, and, well, everything that one would consider what I "am" is just a series of experiences to me. Which is a different thing that living life as a person associated with a particular personality, set of emotions, or set of sensory experiences. I am still finding myself in the process of this change, but there is a certain euphoria in being able to just experience things as they come in, and then they go without infinitely looping, or causing pain. That is one of the big negatives to autism, everything is loud, especially pain. And due to increased neuroplasticity, the threshold for developing a syndrome of constant hypersensitivity/fatigue/pain/etc is much higher.

My lifestyle is adapted as much as possible to how my brain works, and I'll keep doing so over time. It is hard when very basic things like washing the dishes can be overwhelming (sensitive to residual soap, sensory aspects of washing, change in activity has mental cost), or going from apartment to the outdoors for errands (change of environment, _so much noise_ (even with earplugs, a screaming child can take an extra 30 min - 1 hour to destim from), eye contact depending on the day, potential to miss an item but overwhelmed by lists). So the best adaptation for that is adapting lifestyle to still meet my basic needs (socialization, etc) while minimizing overwhelming costs.

Not all of the above can be overwhelming, but the reason the above can be overwhelming is the 'unknown' aspect of it, oftentimes. Because my brain doesn't automatically filter information, I have to constantly do it manually. Think having to manually pedal a bike for 4-5 hours, of course you'll be mentally fatigued!

I am hoping to make some progress on finding a med+lifestyle combo to free up my mental budget for more things I want to do. At some point I might move out of sabbatical to a part time job, but I think that depends upon whether I can _sustainably_ do that while enjoying a life outside of that (previously it was 24/7 survival mode -- crash on Sat/Sun, keep going Monday. Burnout recipe!).

One of the upsides is that I'm one of the best out there in the niche I'm in (neural network training speed + simplicity). As you can see, few things really do come for 'free', _especially_ where there's some Pareto front involved. ;PPPP

So, needless to say, it's an important issue. ;) ;')