A new study out of California found that older parents are more likely to have an autistic child compared to younger parents. The results were published in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Researchers followed more than 130,000 children born to parents in the Kaiser Permanente system between 1995 and 1999. A total of 593 children were diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, ASD, which includes autism. Then both maternal and paternal age were coorelated with autism incidence.
Previous studies had found some link between paternal age and autism rates, though the relationship was not relatively strong.
They found that as age increased, risk of having an autistic child increased. The increase was most evident for female children. For every decade increment increase in age the risk rose 31 percent for maternal age and 28 percent for paternal age.
Based on these results a larger study is underway involving the majority of births in California to see if the link is still present in the general population.
Posted by Dr. Christina Gutierrez on April 4, 2007 04:13 PM
