17288
The Likelihood of a Child Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder, Intellectual Disability or Both Is Related to a Mother's Mental Health Status in the Years before the Birth
Mothers of children with intellectual disability (ID) and/or autism spectrum disorder (autism) have a higher rate of psychiatric disorders than other mothers. It is not known whether these mothers have a higher rate before the birth of their child with a disability or if the increased rate is due to the increased burden of caring.
Objectives:
To examine whether the existence, and rate by diagnostic category, of maternal out-patient mental health contacts before the birth affected the probability of a child with ID, autism, or both.
Methods:
We linked three Western Australian population-based registers. Case mothers were grouped according to the disability of the eldest child with a disability (the index child). The comparator group was mothers of children with no autism or ID and here, the index child was their eldest child. We grouped the outpatient contacts into eight diagnostic categories. The effects of the existence of a contact and the rate of contact for a diagnostic group, before the index birth, on subsequent child disability, were examined using multinomial logistic regression.
Results:
Women with an outpatient contact before the index birth were more likely to have a child with mild ID [OR 2.23(1.99, 2.50)], autism with ID [OR 1.83(1.37, 2.44)], autism without ID [OR 2.56(1.85, 3.55) or ‘other biomedical ID’ [2.19 (1.65, 2.91)]. Previous contacts for developmental disorders increased the odds of having a child with mild ID by 2.09 per contact/ year with 95% CI (1.33, 3.28) and the odds of autism with ID by 1.77 per contact/ year with 95% CI (1.02, 3.08). Previous contacts for childhood and adolescent disorders also increased odds of having a child with mild ID by 1.21 per contact/ year with 95% CI (1.11, 1.32).
Conclusions:
The likelihood of a child with ID, autism or both increased for women with pre-existing mental health contacts. Moreover, the risk of a child with ID was similar to that of autism.