Problem pregnancies

Women who have problems during their pregnancy are more likely to have autistic children.

Women who have problems during their pregnancy are more likely to have autistic children, according to an Australian research.

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But the study has failed to pinpoint a single defining cause for autism, which is characterised by impaired social functioning and communication.

The research, led by Dr Emma Glasson from the University of Western Australia, is published in the latest issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study is the largest of its type to compare children with and without autism as well as the siblings of children with autism.

The researchers found that autistic children were more likely to have older mothers.

Complications causing the onset of autism include threatened abortion, induced labour, epidural caudal anaesthesia, and emergency or elective caesarean. Labor pains in such cases lasted less than an hour.

The researchers stressed that these factors can't be used as indicators that children will develop autism, a disorder diagnosed in children aged three to four years old, with the first symptoms appearing at about 12 months.