New Study Shows Parent’s Psychiatric Problems May Cause Autism In Children
Scientists believe that parents who have any type of psychiatric problem could increase a child’s risk of being autistic. During the research doctors discovered that the amount of autistic children was higher when their parents have suffered from depression, schizophrenia, or other psychiatric disorders.
“Our research shows that mothers and fathers diagnosed with schizophrenia were about twice as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism,” said Julie Daniels of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who worked on the study. “We also saw higher rates of depression and personality disorders among mothers, but not fathers,” she said in a statement.
Researchers who were led by Julie Daniels studied 1,237 medical records of children in Sweden who were born between the years of 1977 and 2003 and were diagnosed with autism before they were 10. They were compared with families of nearly 31,000 children who did not have autism.
“This study might help us pinpoint some more genetic ties to more cases [of autism],” added Daniels.