A new study has found a connection between a pregnant woman’s exposure to air pollution and the chances of her child having autism. Other research has shown a connection in young children, according to IFLScience, but this was the first to collect data across the U.S. looking specifically at the risk for unborn children from particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns.
Raanan Raz of Harvard University is lead author on the paper, which was published in Environmental Health Perspectives.
The researchers analyzed data from 116,000 pregnant women from all 50 states who gave birth as far back as 1989. Of the resulting children, 245 were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Their prenatal exposure to particulate matter was compared to that of 1,522 developmentally typical children, who served as controls. The levels of prenatal exposure were determined based on where the expecting mothers recorded their residence before, after, and during each trimester of pregnancy. The researchers then used air quality data from the EPA for each of the corresponding times and locations. Exposure to high levels during the third trimester conferred the greatest amount of risk.
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“Our data add additional important support to the hypothesis that maternal exposure to air pollution contributes to the risk of autism spectrum disorders,” senior author Marc Weisskopf said in a press release. “The specificity of our findings for the pregnancy period, and third trimester in particular, rules out many other possible explanations for these findings.”
Basically, expecting mothers who lived around these higher levels of particulate matter had a twice as high chance of having a child at risk of developing autism, but exposure before and after the pregnancy were not considered to be a problem.
“The evidence base for a role for maternal exposure to air pollution increasing the risk of autism spectrum disorders is becoming quite strong,” Weisskopf concluded. “This not only gives us important insight as we continue to pursue the origins of autism spectrum disorders, but as a modifiable exposure, opens the door to thinking about possible preventative measures.”
