Induced labour may boost risk of autism
Lindsey Tanner (AP) / 17 August 2013
The biggest study of its kind suggests autism might be linked with inducing and speeding up labour, preliminary findings that need investigating since labour is induced in increasing numbers of US women, the authors and other autism experts say.
Its possible that labour-inducing drugs might increase the risk or that the problems that lead doctors to start labour explain the results. These include mothers diabetes and fetal complications, which have previously been linked with autism.
Like most research into autism causes, the study doesnt provide conclusive answers, and the authors say the results shouldnt lead doctors to avoid inducing labour or speeding it up since it can be life-saving for mothers and babies.
Simon Gregory, lead author and an associate professor of medicine and medical genetics at Duke University, emphasised, We havent found a connection for cause and effect. One of the things we need to look at is why they were being induced in the first place. Government data suggest 1 in 5 US women have labour induced twice as many as in 1990.
Smaller studies suggested a possible tie between induced labour and autism, but the new research is the largest to date, involving more than 600,000 births. The government-funded study was published online Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.
The researchers examined eight years of North Carolina birth records, and matched 625,042 births with public school data from the late 1990s through 2008. Information on autism diagnoses didnt specify whether cases were mild or severe. Labor was induced or hastened in more than 170,000 births.
Overall, 5,648 children developed autism three times as many boys as girls. Among autistic boys, almost one-third of the mothers had labour started or hastened, versus almost 29 per cent of the boys without autism. The differences were less pronounced among girls.
Original post:
Induced labour may boost risk of autism