Babies Fathered By Men Over 40 At Increased Risk Of Autism: Study
Posted September 7, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A recent report published in the Archives of General Psychiatry claims that men over the age of 40 are six times more likely to produce a child with autism.
Researchers with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Institute of Psychiatry in London studied more than 130,000 Israeli children throughout the 1980s and claim the risk of the disorder increases with paternal age. The risk of autism didn’t appear to increase in accordance with the mother’s age.
Up until now, the mother’s age was the only one doctors really expressed any concern about – the risk of having a baby with health problems including spina bifida increases as a woman ages.
According to the results of the study, the risk of autism in the children of men between 15 and 29 was six in every 10,000 children. In fathers 30 to 39, that stat increases slightly to nine in 10,000. But in men aged 40 to 40 it jumps to 32 in 10,000 – about six times higher.
But there are some skeptics who don’t believe there’s any reason for men over 40 to worry.
“Autism is very complex disorder. I wouldn’t want fathers over 40 to think they could have an autistic child. They don’t know that,” Dr. Wendy Roberts of Bloorview Kids Rehab said.
