A study published in JAMA examines link between pediatric autism spectrum disorder and mothers with diabetes that complicated their pregnancies.
Researchers studied 419,425 children born at 28 to 44 weeks from 1995 through 2012. Using EHRs, they tracked children from age 1 year until the first date of clinical diagnosis of ASD; last date of continuous Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente Southern California membership, death or study end date.
Of the 419,425 children:
• 621 were exposed to maternal preexisting type 1 diabetes
• 9,453 to maternal preexisting type 2 diabetes
• 11,922 to gestational diabetes mellitus diagnosed by 26 weeks' gestation
• 24,505 to gestational diabetes mellitus diagnosed after 26 weeks' gestation
During a median follow-up of 6.9 years, 5,827 children were diagnosed with ASD. The average annual ASD incidence rates per 1,000 children were:
• 4.4 for exposure to preexisting type 1 diabetes
• 3.6 for preexisting type 2 diabetes
• 2.9 for gestational diabetes mellitus by 26 weeks
• 2.1 for gestational diabetes mellitus after 26 weeks
• 1.8 for no exposure to diabetes
"These results suggest that the severity of maternal diabetes and the timing of exposure (early versus late in pregnancy) may be associated with the risk of ASD in offspring of diabetic mothers," study authors concluded.