Kelly Preston has opened up about the death of her son, Jett Travolta, for the first time. She feels that chemical and environmental factors contributed to his health issues. It was known that he had Kawasaki disease. Kelly Preston has now revealed that he also had autism.
Jett Travolta was the son of Kelly Preston and John Travolta. Jett died in 2009 at the age of 16. He had a seizure and hit his head while in the bathtub. He was found unconscious by a caretaker. This occurred while the family was on vacation in the Bahamas.
Jett had Kawasaki disease. It is a rare childhood disease that involves the inflammation of blood vessels in the arteries, especially in the coronary arteries. The inflammation can lead to a heart attack or an aneurysm. Kawasaki disease occurs more often in boys than it does in girls. The cause is unknown.
Symptoms for the disease come in three phases. In the first phase, a child could experience a fever that is higher than 101.3 F that lasts for one to two weeks. Other symptoms in this phase include conjunctivitis (without discharge), a rash on the trunk of the body, dry lips, a swollen tongue, red skin on palms of hands and soles of feet, swollen lymph nodes and irritability.
The second phase has more severe symptoms. This can include peeling skin on the child’s hands and feet (often in large sheets). It also can include joint pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. The third phase is when the symptoms start to go away. It can take eight weeks before the child’s energy levels return to normal.
Recently, Kelly Preston appeared on a television show called “The Doctors”. She revealed that her son, Jett, was autistic. She feels that his autism developed from his battle with Kawasaki disease when he was a child.
She also said that she believes that there were chemical and environmental factors that may have contributed to Jett’s health issues. She said:
“I strongly believe as a mother, as does my husband, that there are certain contributing factors that lead to autism, and some of it is very much the chemicals in our environment and in our food.”
Kelly Preston also said that she was on an antibiotic while she was breastfeeding Jett. She attributes that, plus “environmental toxins”, as the things that led to her son’s compromised health. Jett was using medication for his autism, however, his mother feels that healthy living was a better regimen than prescription drugs were.
Image by Becky Wetherington on Flickr