Pregnancy, delivery, and neonatal complications among autistic children
E. Y. Deykin and B. MacMahon
An investigation of the prenatal, delivery, and neonatal experience of 145
autistic children matched with 330 unaffected siblings revealed that among
the propositi there was a preponderance of first-born children. Obstetrical
records, which had been made prior to the diagnosis of autism, indicated
that autistic children were more likely than their siblings to have
experienced at least one untoward event during their mothers' gestations
and deliveries. Similarly, the autistic children had an increased risk of
neonatal complications. Despite the significant excess of total
reproductive complications in the autistic series, there was no single
event or a combination of biologically related complications that could
reasonably account for any large number of cases of autism. While it is
possible that autism may be the product of several diverse deleterious
events experienced in utero, during delivery, or in the early neonatal
period, our finding could be a chance occurrence or could signal the
presence of a unknown factor responsible both for autism and for a variety
of reproductive complications.
