{"id":253430,"date":"2025-11-01T00:37:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/253430\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T00:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:37:19","slug":"study-ties-covid-19-pregnancies-to-higher-rates-of-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/253430\/","title":{"rendered":"Study ties COVID-19 pregnancies to higher rates of autism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Oct. 31 (UPI) &#8212; Children born to women who were infected with COVID-19 during their pregnancies are more prone to autism, Massachusetts General Hospital researchers reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A positive test for COVID-19 during pregnancy resulted in a 29% higher risk of developing a neurodevelopmental disorder in the children after birth, the researchers said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.massgeneralbrigham.org\/en\/about\/newsroom\/press-releases\/covid-19-during-pregnancy-linked-to-neurodevelopmental-disorders\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:report published Thursday,;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">report published Thursday,<\/a> according to <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/5583542-covid-pregnancy-autism-risk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Hill;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;These findings highlight that COVID-19, like many other infections in pregnancy, may pose risks not only to the mother, but also to fetal brain development,&#8221; senior author Andrea Edlow said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;They also support the importance of trying to prevent COVID-19 infection in pregnancy and are particularly relevant when public trust in vaccines &#8212; including the COVID-19 vaccine &#8212; is being eroded,&#8221; Edlow added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Edlow is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at MassGeneral Brigham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The medical researchers assessed more than 18,000 births from March 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021, in which the mothers had tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They narrowed their sample group to 861 women who tested positive for COVID-19 and found that 140, equal to 16%, of those women gave birth to children who were diagnosed with autism by the age of 3, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/10\/30\/health\/autism-covid-pregnancy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:CNN reported;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">CNN reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The results significantly differ from those of mothers who tested negative for COVID-19 while pregnant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In those cases, less than 10% of children were diagnosed with autism before reaching 3 years old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Boys are at a higher risk than girls, and so are children whose mothers tested positive during the third trimester of their respective pregnancies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Autism and disorders affecting speech motor functions were the most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopmental problems in affected children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct. 31 (UPI) &#8212; Children born to women who were infected with COVID-19 during their pregnancies are more&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[118049,12329,49,48,84,70167,118048,1536],"class_list":["post-253430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-andrea-edlow","tag-autism","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-massachusetts-general-hospital","tag-neurodevelopmental-disorder","tag-pregnancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}