The Prevalence and Relationship between Maternal Medical Conditions and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Objectives to identify the prevalence of certain maternal medical conditions among the mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods An observational cross sectional analytic study included all mothers of children diagnosed with ASD according to the DSM-5 criteria who visited the pediatric clinics at Al-Amal Hospital. The sample of study consists of 66 participants. The study was conducted using face-to-face semi-structured interviews. The interview consisted of questions regarding sociodemographic data, chronic diseases of the mothers, pregnancy of the autistic child and delivery events, and psychological history of the mother and other family members. Results The Majority of autistic children following with the clinics aged from 5 to 10 years. About 19.7 % of the families of autistic children had other autistic children. Only 18.2 % of mothers suffered from chronic diseases. The most common chronic diseases among those mothers was diabetes, followed by hypertension, obesity, and asthma. Only 15.2 % of mothers were more than 35 years old when they got pregnant with an autistic child. About half of mothers were exposed to tobacco. Approximately 28.8 %of mothers were exposed to family problems during the pregnancy of their autistic children. Conclusion There was no significant prevalence of chronic diseases among mothers of autism children during their pregnancy. Also there was no effect of conditions and diseases of motherhood during pregnancy on developing anautism spectrum disorder in the offspring.