A study that was recently published in the journal “Pediatrics” suggest that mothers who are obese are more likely to have a child with autism, or with another type of developmental problem. Moms who have diabetes have the same risk. The implication is that obesity and diabetes are affecting early brain development.
There has been a lot of research done in an attempt to discover the causes of autism. I’ve lost track of the wide variety of things that are said to be the cause of autism, or that are found to increase the risk of it. Perhaps, one day, all of this information can result in a concise conclusion.
Previously, a study was done that looked at the financial impact that autism had on a family. The research showed that mothers of kids who have autism are more likely to be unemployed than are moms of kids who do not have an autism spectrum disorder. Fathers of kids who have autism, on the other hand, were able to continue to work, and to keep a full time job. The reason for this discrepancy seems to be that it is the mothers who stop working in order to be at home, caring for their child.
A new study also takes a look at mothers who have a child with autism. It finds that mothers who are obese, or who have diabetes, are more likely than mothers who are not obese, and who do not have diabetes, to have a child who has autism (or other developmental problems). Scientists see this as one more reason why pregnancy and obesity are not a good combination of factors.
This study included around 1,000 mothers. Half of the mothers had a child with an autism spectrum disorder. The rest of the mothers either had a child who had a developmental delay that was not related to autism, or, they had a child with no developmental problems.
The researchers found three factors that increased the risk of a woman having a child who has autism. Those factors were: obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure during pregnancy. Women who had all three of those health conditions increased their risk of having a child who has autism by 60%. Those particular health conditions in the mother also more than doubled the chance that her child would have some other developmental delay, other than autism.
Out of those three factors, the one that had the most influence on autism was obesity. More than 20% of the women in the study who had a child that had an autism spectrum disorder were obese. It is worth pointing out obesity increases a woman’s risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy, and it can also increase the risk of high blood pressure. The three factors are connected to each other.
Image by One Tiny Spark on Flickr