Pregnant women in old age significantly higher risk of having a child with autism, regardless of the age of the father, according to a study on all births in California in the 1990s by researchers at UC Davis Health System. Father with old age associated with an increased risk of autism is only when the age was much older fathers and mothers under the age of 30 years.
The study found that the incremental risk of a child with autism has increased by 18% for each 5 year increase in maternal age. Woman / mother was pregnant at the age of 40 years has had a child with autism risk by 50% larger than a woman between 25 years and 29 years.
Age parents who go are known risk factors tend to have a child with autism. However, previous studies have shown conflicting results about whether the mother, father or both which contribute greatly to increased risk of autism. For example, one study reported that the father more than 40 years have a risk six times greater than the fathers under the age of 30 years.
Researchers are also a doctoral student at UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, Janie Shelton, said that the study is to deny the theory of autism that have been identified there is a paternal age as a key factor in the increased risk of having a child with autism. This indicates that maternal age has consistently increased risk of autism, whereas paternal age contribute to increased risk only when much older fathers and mothers under the age of 30 years. Among women aged more than 30 years, an increase in paternal age has no effect on the increased risk of autism.
In the data examined, among births to 25 years old mother and a father more than 40 years, two times more likely to develop autism than his father between the ages of 25 and 29 years. Whereas among women aged more than 30 years, found no increased risk associated with age older fathers.
Autism is a developmental disorder with deficits in social skills and communication, and behavior is limited, with the onset of which occurred before the age of 3 years. Abnormal brain development, probably starting in the womb, known as the basic behaviors that characterize autism. Current estimates place the incidence of autism between 1 in 100 children around the world. During the 1990s, the number of women over the age of 40 years in California gave birth to children with autism increased more than 300%.
The researchers noted that understanding the relationship between parental age increases the risk of autism is crucial to understanding the biological causes. Previous research has observed that advanced maternal age are risk factors for a variety of other birth conditions, including infertility, early fetal loss, low birth weight, chromosomal aberration and congenital anomalies.
One clue may come from the UC Davis study in 2008 which found several mothers of children with autism have antibodies against fetal brain proteins, and none was found in the mothers of the children normal. Old age has been associated with increased auto-antibody production. Further research to investigate the elderly in these findings may be useful. Added that some environmental chemicals that accumulate continuously in the body, also has the possibility of a role in autism.
Research also shows that epigenetic changes over time, which allows older parents to transfer large amounts of molecular functional changes to the children. Thus, epigenetic also have the possibility of increased risk involved in autism.
Tags: Autism
