Parents’ Age Has Direct Link to Risk of Giving Birth To Autistic Child

Researchers published a study on Monday that has been conducted to determine how significant of a factor the age of both parents is in relation to giving birth to an autistic child. The study, which was published online in the Autism Research Journal, indicates that older mothers have a higher risk of giving birth to a child with autism than younger mothers. The published study also shows that older fathers increase the risk of giving birth to a child with the autism disorder when their partners are younger than 30 years old, according to The New York Times.

Researchers who were involved with the study examined the results from five million births that took place in California throughout the 1990’s, which was a noticeably large sample size that helped them to come up with conclusive results. The study’s statistics show that when the father was at least 40 years of age and the mother was younger than 30 years of age, the risk of giving birth to an autistic child increases by a staggering 59 percent.

In regards to the link between a mother’s age and the risk of giving birth to a child with the autism disorder, a woman who is 40 years of age or older has a 50 percent greater risk of giving birth to an autistic child than a mother in her late-twenties. Perhaps even more telling is the fact that the risk is 77 percent higher for a mother who is at least 40 in comparison to a mother who is younger than 25 years old.