What the report has to say about obese mothers

According to a report, moms who are obese while they are pregnant have 2x the possibility of having an autistic child than those who are not according to a study. When a woman is obese and diabetic at the same time, the possibility of the child to become autistic is at least 4xs according to a research. When it comes to the absolute possibility, when compared to the usual pediatric issues like obesity or asthma, the ASD rate in America is quite low; on the other hand, the personal, societal and family impact of the ASD is quite massive. This is according to the study conducted by the public health and pediatrics researcher in a university in Baltimore.

The rate of kids with ASD

Around 1 in every 68 kids has ASD that includes autism and Asperger’s syndrome and other prevalent developmental disorders as well.  This data came from the U.S centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In another perspective, this is around 1.5% of the kids in the US. The study, however, suggests that the risk grows closer to around 3% of the babies born from women with diabetes and with obesity problem, they approaches around 5% to more than 6% when the moms have the mixture of both health issues.  To explore further the link between autism and mental health, the researchers have analyzed the data furthermore on 2,734 mother and child pairs who were followed in Boston Medical Center from 1998 to 2014.

Most of the kids, 64% of which were detected with ASD or any other disorders related with the development, but there were more than a hundred kids who were diagnosed with ASD.  When compared with the usual developing kids, those with ASD are boys and they were born preterm and at a low birth weight, the mothers of the kids with ASD were quite older, diabetic and obese before or throughout the pregnancy. The maternal obesity was associated to more than 92% of the rise in the possibility of the kids to have autism, while if the diabetes was diagnosed before the woman gets pregnant, that will be linked to around 3xs the risk.

If the woman both had diabetes and she was obese at the same time, the risk of the child having autism will be 4xs, but if the diabetes were diagnosed throughout pregnancy, that will be more than 5xs the risk before being pregnant.  Though the precise reason for the link is not lucid enough, it is most probable that the rise in inflammation, hormones as well as nutrients associated to diabetes as well as obesity might be in accordance for the risk in autism