Moms Can Reduce Autism Rates With Prenatal Vitamins, According to a Study

The risk and severity of autism are declining for at-risk siblings of autistic children if mothers take prenatal vitamins during the first month of their pregnancy, according to a study released Wednesday by the MIND Institute of 39, University of California at Davis.

This is the first time that a study shows that families at high risk of autism in successive children may also benefit from the fact that the mother takes prenatal vitamin supplements at the same time. approach to conception, UCD researchers said, which they had already found during the first pregnancy in women in general. population.

"This study focuses on high-risk families where the genetic contribution to the diagnosis of autism is probably more important. We were therefore not sure that they would benefit from the same type of risk reduction, "said Rebecca J. Schmidt, researcher at the MIND Institute. I said. "If it's mostly genetics, you might think that such a thing would not help much, but it turns out that, at least in our study population, there seems to have been this association again. with reduced risk. "

The latest findings of the MIND Institute, published Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry, have led Schmidt to say that this is probably not a bad idea for a woman of childbearing age who is sexually active but does not protect against pregnancy. take a prescribed prenatal multivitamin that includes folic acid.

Schmidt said his team had followed 241 families affected by autism for this study. Families were more likely than their younger brothers to inherit the genetic trait of autism, but when women started taking prenatal vitamins early in their pregnancy, the risk of autism was cut in half about for older siblings.

"It's about protecting against the recurrence of ASD among younger siblings at high risk of autistic children," said Schmidt, an assistant professor in the department's public health sciences department. University of California at Davis.

In the study, not all high-risk families planned a pregnancy, but they did not actively protect against pregnancy, Schmidt said. Some mothers took prenatal vitamins at conception while others did not.

Medical experts have recommended that women start taking these supplements before becoming pregnant, Schmidt said, and UCD studies have shown the benefits. Children whose mother was doing so were less likely to suffer from an autism spectrum disorder, had a significantly lower severity of symptoms and displayed higher cognitive scores with age.

According to Schmidt, it seems essential that the fetus has the right nutrients for development, from conception, and that women can take several months to accumulate nutrient reserves in their system. Although it has been shown that folic acid was crucial at this early stage of neuronal pathway establishment, Schmidt said the researchers did not yet know if any other vitamins played such a vital role.

She urged women to seek prescription prenatal vitamins because over-the-counter supplements are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration. According to Schmidt, it is important for women to know that they are getting what their bodies need.

In the United States, one in 59 children has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, UCD researchers said, and the younger siblings of children with the disorder are about 13 times more likely to develop it as the general population. The risk of recurrence is close to 1 in 5.

If the results of the study can be replicated, said Schmidt, this implies that genetic susceptibility could potentially be overcome by taking maternal prenatal multivitamins. Doctors recommend that women start taking prenatal vitamins before trying to conceive, but the UCD study found that only about 34% of the women in the study had started them before conception. Nearly all participants in the study, 96%, had taken prenatal multivitamins, including folic acid, before giving birth.

The subjects of the study included:

• Mothers who had a child with a confirmed ASD and who were planning a pregnancy or were pregnant with another child.
• The younger siblings at risk of autism were born between 2006 and 2015 and were diagnosed at the age of 3 years.

Schmidt said some women who had previously had children with autism were not taking folic acid during their second pregnancy because of inaccurate reports online that it could cause autism.

"When we look at the data at the individual level, there is really no evidence for that. If anything, it seems to be very helpful, "said Schmidt. "It was important to convey this message, that these high-risk families should not avoid folic acid supplements or prenatal vitamins in general,"

The latest UCD research was funded by the Allen Foundation, the MIND Institute, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health.