Prenatal Risk Factors for Autism: A Comprehensive Meta-analysis

By Hannah Gardener, Donna Spiegelman, S. Buka. British Journal of Psychiatry, 2009

738 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background The aetiology of autism is unknown, although prenatal exposures have been the focus of epidemiological research for over 40 years. Aims To provide the first quantitative review and meta-analysis of the association between maternal pregnancy complications and pregnancy-related factors and risk of autism. Method PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO databases were searched for epidemiological studies that examined the association between pregnancy-related factors and autism. Forty studies were eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Summary effect estimates were calculated for factors examined in multiple studies. Results Over 50 prenatal factors have been examined. The factors associated with autism risk in the meta-analysis were advanced parental age at birth, maternal prenatal medication use, bleeding, gestational diabetes, being first born v. third or later, and having a mother born abroad. The factors with the strongest evidence against a role in autism risk included previous fetal loss and maternal hypertension, proteinuria, pre-eclampsia and swelling. Conclusions There is insufficient evidence to implicate any one prenatal factor in autism aetiology, although there is some evidence to suggest that exposure to pregnancy complications may increase the risk.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/813bd28480fb99f9d211f8d903c6ba65e6e9887e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

1. Donna Spiegelman
2. S. Buka
3. Hannah Gardener
4. Marion Leboyer
5. Pauline Chaste

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. Donna Spiegelman
2. S. Buka
3. Hannah Gardener
4. Marion Leboyer
5. Pauline Chaste

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. Donna Spiegelman
2. S. Buka
3. Hannah Gardener

Citations in the corpus

• The Changing Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders (2016, background): “Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (62, 63, 72, 103) suggest more than 20 individual, familial, and pre-, peri-, and neonatal factors with some level of converging evidence for ASD risk (e.”
• Environmental risk factors for autism: an evidence-based review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (2017, background): “[24, 25] carried out two comprehensive reviews of prenatal and perinatal risk factors for ASD.”
• Autism risk factors: genes, environment, and gene-environment interactions (2012, background): “A recent meta-analysis of prenatal factors, limited to pregnancy-related factors, identified few significant risk factors.(81) The main factors are maternal gestational diabetes, maternal bleeding during pregnancy, and maternal medication.”
• Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College (background): “Art historians are now becoming aware of the possibility that context does not necessarily translate into content, and that art has its own validity and message independent of contemporary events.”
• Perinatal and Neonatal Risk Factors for Autism: A Comprehensive Meta-analysis (2011, methodology): “Premature rupture of membranes (7) 7 1.”