Complications during pregnancy could increase the risk of having a child with autism, research suggested today.
Complications during pregnancy could increase the risk of having a child with autism, research suggested today.
The analysis, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found a series of factors "strongly associated" with an increased autism risk.
They included being born to an older mother or father and having a mother who used medication while pregnant.
The American researchers, who reviewed 64 studies of parental risk and considered more than 50 prenatal factors found mothers giving birth abroad might not have natural resistance to that country's infections, possibly increasing the risk of autism.
Bleeding during pregnancy, gestational diabetes and birth order were also identified as potential issues. But the researchers said there was "insufficient evidence" to point to any one prenatal factor as being significant.
