A full U.S. study involving 224,353 children revealed a consistent link between maternal health during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorder. The research highlighted variations in autism prevalence across racial and ethnic groups, with disparities observed in specific maternal conditions.
Maternal Health Conditions and Autism
Scientists identified that most maternal health issues during the perinatal phase exhibited comparable ties to autism, irrespective of racial or ethnic backgrounds. Yet, four specific conditions—maternal overweight and obesity, depression, asthma, and pregnancy complications—displayed racial and ethnic variations in their link strength to autism.
White mothers exhibited stronger connections between these conditions and autism compared to Black, Hispanic, or Asian and Pacific Islander mothers. The researchers propose that this might indicate inequities in medical access, diagnostic procedures, or unaccounted environmental and genetic elements, which could influence the precision of autism diagnoses.
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Autism Prevalence
The study found that 2.4% of children were diagnosed with autism, with prevalences of 3.2% for Black children, 2.9% for Asian and Pacific Islander children, 2.5% for Hispanic children, and 2.0% for white children. Magdalena Janecka, PhD, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine, states that most studies examining potential risk factors for autism assume that these effects are the same across different population groups.
Janecka notes that there is a lot of room for variation, and that maternal depression, for example, may have a more severe form of disorder upon diagnosis in women with limited access to healthcare or from ethnic minority groups. The severity of maternal depression can be influenced by various factors, including access to healthcare.
Study Findings and Limitations
The investigation evaluated 25 maternal conditions previously linked to autism. Four of these conditions demonstrated a statistically significant interaction term with maternal race and ethnicity. Study limitations included a finite follow-up duration, which did not capture autism diagnoses made at later ages, Janecka and co-authors acknowledged.
The study’s outcomes highlight the need for equitable healthcare access and suggest that the interplay between maternal and child racial identity warrants further exploration. With autism affecting one in every 31 U.S. children by age 8, according to recent CDC data, understanding the causes behind these associations and identifying high-impact populations has attracted attention. The CDC data offer insights into autism prevalence in the U.S.
Further research is needed to understand the relationships between maternal health conditions and autism. The researchers’ findings emphasize the importance of considering race and ethnicity when examining the associations between maternal health conditions and autism. By doing so, they hope to contribute to a better understanding of autism and its causes. Notably, the mean age at diagnosis was 3 years, and the mean maternal age at delivery was 31.9 years, while mothers in the study cohort had a median number of two conditions, with 53.4% having two or more conditions, and 10.7% having five or more conditions.
While many factors may contribute to the rise in diagnoses, what causes autism remains elusive, and numerous studies have demonstrated that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen is not associated with an increased risk in autism diagnoses, contrary to previous warnings, such as the one issued by President Trump in 2025.
