LOS ANGELES (MCT) — Pregnant women might now have one more good reason to watch their diet and exercise: A new study links autism and developmental delays in young children to metabolic conditions, like obesity and diabetes, in their mothers.
The findings, published in Monday’s edition of the journal Pediatrics, found that women who had diabetes or hypertension or were obese were 1.61 times as likely as healthy women to have children with autism spectrum disorders. They also were 2.35 times as likely to have children with developmental delays.
Child development experts said the findings were interesting but that it would be premature to suggest that the results could help explain the dramatic rise in diagnosed cases of autism over the last decade.
