A new study claimed that women who become pregnant within a year after delivering child could be putting their next child at raised risk of autism. Researchers believe that such children are three times more prone to have developmental chaos. The women bodies require time to recover from a pregnancy.
The conceiving so quickly after childbirth may be underprivileged of important nutrients. Earlier studies have shown that women with two narrowly spaced pregnancies are at higher risk of premature birth and low birth weight. It advised mothers to keep at least a gap of one year to get pregnant and having a baby.
In a study researchers analyzed the occurrence of autism among more than six lakh second born babies in California in years 1992 to 2002. They investigated interpregnancy interval between the births of the first baby and the conceiving of the second baby. They evaluated the ages of the parents, ethnical background and education of the mothers.
The results of the study suggested that babies born after shorter intervals between pregnancies were at higher risk of developing autism. The higher risk was related with less than one year pregnancies spaces, explained lead researcher Dr Keely Cheslack Postava. The conceiving of second baby within a year of older sibling’s birth was more than three times prone to have autism.
While babies conceived after twelve to twenty-three months after birth of first baby were nearly two times prone to have autism. The US team revealed that closely spaced pregnancies raised risk that a baby loosed out of nutrients especially foliate, required in pregnancy. But other aspects like maternal levels of iron and polyunsaturated fatty acids should be considered.
Women had been advised extensively to keep a gap of about one tear between pregnancies. Women should not get too worried as the complete risk of autism in this study remains very low, even when the gap between pregnancies is less than a year, explained Dr Patrick O’Brien, a consultant and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.