Loading ...Solving Autism
A new study suggests that low birth weight is an important factor that may contribute to the risk of autism spectrum disorder or ASD. Autism affects one in 100 children and the role of the environment is a factor that has been considered for many years now. The study, which involves discordant twins or twin pairs in which only one twin is affected with ASD, low birth weight has been found to be a strong predictor of this disorder.
Molly Losh, a professor and a researcher in Northwestern’s School of Communication is also the lead author in the study which resolves to learn more about the environmental factors like low birth weight in developing ASD. This research study will be published in the journal Psychological Medicine which is now available to read online.
Previous studies on twins have showed that when one identical twin had autism spectrum disorder the other twin was much more likely to have the disorder than not. This is basically due to identical twins sharing almost 100 percent of their genes which is another strong evidence of the effect of genetics to autism.
There is also other environmental factor that may be held responsible for the development of this disorder like the mother’s prenatal and perinatal visits. Furthermore, the researchers have found out that the risk of autism tripled with an infant with low birth weight; this is evidenced in identical twin pairs in which one had ASD while the other twin did not.
This study furthermore would like to correct misinformation about the various causes of autism. Decades ago, it was thought that vaccines given to pregnant mothers caused autism which is of course found to be irrelevant to the development of the disorder.
The research further added that the findings of the effect of low birth weight in twins to the development of autism may not extend to singletons. Prenatal and prenatal condition for twins and singletons may differ from one another in many ways.
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