“Obese women and those with type 2 diabetes could be increasing
their chances of having a child with autism or another
development disorder,” BBC News has reported. This news is based
on research examining the possibility of a link between a
child's chances of developing one of these conditions and their
pregnant mother having one or more of the "metabolic
conditions": diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. To
explore any potential links the researchers recruited children
with autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay and typical
development, and looked at whether their mothers were affected
by any of the three metabolic conditions during pregnancy. They
found several associations between mothers having metabolic
conditions and their children's chances of developmental delays
and autism, as well as their likelihood of scoring lower on
several markers of development, particularly expressive
language. Due to its design, the study can only show that
metabolic conditions during pregnancy are associated wi