There is a time for everything, popular beliefs keep on saying since forever. There is a time for youth, and a time for motherhood. When phases are being skipped, some unwanted effects appear and we are bound to pay the price of consequences. Autistic children can be the consequence of innapropriate ages for parenting.
Recent research shows that older parents and teen moms seem to pose a greater risk of having a child with autism, according to one of the largest studies ever conducted on parental age and the mental condition.
Generally, 1 in 68 children is diagnosed with autism, namely a series of brain disorders that are caused by both parental genes, along with some other unknown factors that come along the way.
Furthermore, autism is more likely to develop in boys than in girls, due to naturally occurring sexual differences that take shape differently, according to gender particularities. Autism is characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties and stereotyped patterns of behavior.
It seems that autism is more likely to develop if age differences in both parents are considerable or if parents are very old or very young, as statistics in the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska institute in Sweden revealed.
Children of teen moms are 18% more likely to have autism, compared to children born to moms after 20 years of age, researchers found. The study authors expanded their research over 31.000 children with autism and compared them with nearly 6 million children free from the affection, in five countries. Large and diverse territories were analyzed, including Australia, Norway, Israel, Sweden and Denmark.
Also, fathers over 50 are exposed to a 66% risk of having children with autism, compared to fathers in their 20’s. Furthermore, the risk of children with fathers over 40 to develop autism is 28% higher than for children of young fathers over 20 years of age.
Although the study reveals a great level of association between parents’ ages and autism risks, this does not prove a cause-effect relationship on a common basis. Generally the risk to develop autism is low, no matter the ages of parents.
The entire report can be found in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. It is anyhow important to know that with age, our body fluids degrade and our metabolic systems are not as evolved or efficient in old age as they are in our days of youth. But having a child when you are too young offers high degrees of risk as well, with the body and natural processes that occur to it being under developed.
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