Study Confirms Link Between Older Maternal Age and Autism
Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 10:07
in Psychology & Sociology
It is common knowledge: As women get older, pregnancy becomes a riskier enterprise. Advanced maternal age is linked to a number of developmental disorders in children, such as Down's syndrome . Now, a study has confirmed that older mothers are more likely to give birth to a child with autism, too.The authors of the epidemiological study, published February 8 in Autism Research , examined the parental age of more than 12,000 children with autism and nearly five million "control" children between 1990 and 1999, all living in California. The researchers found that mothers over 40 had a 51 percent higher risk of having a child with autism than mothers 25 to 29, and a 77 percent higher risk than mothers under 25. [More]