A new study suggests that if a mother contracts COVID-19 during pregnancy, her child may be more likely to be diagnosed with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. study.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed more than 18,000 births that occurred in the Mass General Brigham Health System between March 2020 and May 2021, evaluating the mothers’ laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 test records and the children’s neurodevelopmental diagnostic records through age 3.
They found that children born to mothers who were infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder than children born to mothers who were not infected during pregnancy. That is, 16% or more versus less than 10%, or 1.3 times the risk after adjusting for other risk factors.
Overall, the difference in risk was more pronounced for boys and mothers who contracted COVID-19 in the third trimester of pregnancy. Previous research has suggested that the brains of male fetuses are more vulnerable to maternal immune responses and that the third trimester of pregnancy is a “critical window for brain development,” according to the authors of the new study.
The most common diagnoses included language impairment, impaired motor development, and autism. About 2.7% of children born to mothers who contracted COVID-19 during pregnancy were diagnosed with autism, compared with about 1.1% of other children, according to a study published Thursday in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The new findings are “particularly noteworthy for their biological relevance,” the researchers wrote. They build on previous research that identified potential pathways by which maternal COVID-19 infection could affect fetal brain development even without direct transmission.
“Parental awareness of adverse child neurodevelopmental outcomes following COVID-19 during pregnancy is important,” said Lydia Shook, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead author of the study. “By understanding the risks, parents can appropriately advocate to ensure their child receives appropriate evaluation and support.” press release.
According to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in April, by 2022, approximately 1 in 31 U.S. children will be diagnosed with autism by age 8. The increase, up from 1 in 36 children in 2020, continues a long-term trend that experts attribute primarily to better understanding and screening for the disease.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a “massive testing and research effort” to determine “the causes of the autism epidemic.”
At a press conference last September, “Causes of AutismPresident Donald Trump, joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and other federal health leaders, said that using Tylenol during pregnancy could “significantly increase the risk of autism,” despite decades of evidence showing it is safe.
Kennedy also has a history of making comments linking autism and vaccines, despite strong evidence that suggests there is no link between autism and vaccines.
The time frame of the new study, early in the pandemic before vaccines were widely available, meant researchers could “isolate the link between SARS-CoV-2 infection and offspring neurodevelopment in an unvaccinated population.” Approximately 93% of mothers included in the assessment had not received any COVID-19 vaccine. Strong infection control policies at the time also helped reduce the likelihood of unreported or undetected Covid-19 cases, the researchers said.
“These findings highlight that COVID-19, like many other infections during pregnancy, may pose a risk not only to the mother but also to the brain development of the fetus,” said Dr. Andrea Edlow, a Mass General Brigham maternal-fetal medicine specialist and senior author of the new study. “They also support the importance of efforts to prevent COVID-19 infection during pregnancy and are particularly relevant at a time when public trust in vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine, is eroding.”
