Child's autism risk rises with increasing age of parents

http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2014/April/Autism-Risk-Older-Parents/

April 22, 2014
Drexel University School of Public Health

Older parents are more likely to have a child who develops an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than are younger parents. A recent study from researchers from the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia and Karolinska Institute in Sweden provides more insight into how the risk associated with parental age varies between mothers’ and fathers’ ages, and found that the risk of having a child with both ASD and intellectual disability is larger for older parents. - See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2014/April/Autism-Risk-Older-Parents/#sthash.Jb4bievK.dpuf

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The risk of having a child with ASD had a more complicated relationship to age in women than in men – whose risk of fathering a child with ASD increased linearly with age across their lifespan. Among women giving birth before the age of 30, the risk of ASD in the child showed no association with age -- it was simply very low. But for babies born to mothers aged 30 and older, the chance of developing ASD rose rapidly with the mother's age. - See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2014/April/Autism-Risk-Older-Parents/#sthash.Jb4bievK.dpuf

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Multiple mechanisms could be in play to account for the different patterns of risk, including environmental risk factors occurring in women after age 30. Factors such as complications in pregnancy could also underlie the effect of mothers’ ages on a child’s ASD risk but not a paternal age effect. The linear, steady increase in risk associated with fathers’ ages is consistent with the hypothesis of increased genomic alterations over the father’s lifespan that can increase risk of ASD, Lee said. - See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2014/April/Autism-Risk-Older-Parents/#sthash.Jb4bievK.dpuf

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