KAISER PERMANENTE STUDY AUTISM RISES WITH ADVANCED MATERNAL AND PATERNAL AGE

Risk of Autism Rises With Age of Moms, Dads



Kaiser Permanente study of more than 132,000 children suggests link between
chronic, life-long condition and advanced maternal and paternal age

OAKLAND, Calif., April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Men and women who wait to have
babies later in life may increase their children's risk for autism,
according to a Kaiser Permanente study featured in the April issue of
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives
journals.
The study investigated 132,844 children born at Kaiser Permanente
hospitals in its Northern California region over a five-year period
(1995-1999) and identified 593 children who had been diagnosed with an
autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Study results show that a mother's and father's risk of delivering a
child with autism steadily increases as they get older. Women ages 40 and
older showed a 30 percent increase in risk for having a child with autism
(1 in 123), when compared to moms between the ages of 25 and 29 (1 in 156).
Men ages 40 and older had up to a 50 percent increased risk of having a