A US study on Friday said mothers who were obese during pregnancy had almost twice the odds of having a child with autism as women who weighed less.
The study, which was reported in the Journal Paediatrics, said when women were both obese and have diabetes, the autism risk for their child was at least quadrupled.
According to the authors, the findings are important because more than a third of women of childbearing age are obese and roughly one in 10 has diabetes.
They noted that an estimated two to 10 per cent of mothers develop diabetes during pregnancy and often these conditions can be addressed prior to pregnancy.
To explore the connection between autism and maternal health, Wang and colleagues analysed data on 2,734 mother-child pairs who were followed at Boston Medical Centre between 1998 and 2014.
Dr. Xiaobin Wang, a senior study author of the research, said: “In terms of absolute risk, the rate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the U.S. population is relatively low.
“This is when compared to common paediatric diseases such as obesity and asthma.
“However, the personal, family and societal impact of ASD is enormous.”
Wang is also a public health and paediatrics researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
The study findings suggest that the risk rises closer to about three per cent of babies born to women who are obese or have diabetes.
It approaches five per cent to six per cent when mothers have the combination of obesity and diabetes.
Maternal obesity was linked to a 92 per cent increased risk for autism on its own, while diabetes diagnosed before pregnancy was associated with more than triple the risk.
Elinor Sullivan, a Biology and Neuroscience researcher at the University of Portland, in Oregon, said the exact reason for these connections was not clear.
Sullivan, who was not involved in the study, said it was possible that increased inflammation, nutrients and hormones linked to diabetes and obesity may be responsible for the added autism risk.
According to her, these factors impact on how the brain develops.
Sullivan also said the risk for autism would be further increased if women were obese and had diabetes.
She explained that this would be so as the levels of inflammatory factors and nutrients that the offspring would be exposed to would be further elevated.
Renee Gardner, a public health researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden, said: “It is good advice for women to achieve a healthy weight and get diabetes under control before becoming pregnant.
“This is for many reasons not related to autism.
“Some of the reasons include the risks to both the child’s health and the mother’s health, serious pregnancy complications, C-section delivery and even still births.
“These are greatly increased if the mother is obese or has uncontrolled diabetes.”
Reuters/NAN.
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