Children may be more likely to be diagnosed with autism and other neurodevelopment disorders if their mother had a Covid-19 infection while pregnant, according to a new study.
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed more than 18,000 births that occurred in the Mass General Brigham health system between March 2020 and May 2021, assessing records for laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 tests among the mothers and for neurodevelopment diagnoses among their children through age 3.
They found that children born to mothers who had Covid-19 during pregnancy were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with a neurodevelopment disorder than those born to mothers who did not have an infection while pregnant: more than 16% versus less than 10%, or a 1.3 times higher risk after adjusting for other risk factors. Overall, differences in risks were more pronounced among boys and in cases where the mother had a Covid-19 infection during the third trimester. Previous studies have suggested that male fetal brains are more susceptible to maternal immune responses, according to the authors of the new study, and the third trimester is a “critical window for brain development.”
The most common diagnoses included disorders in speech and motor function development and autism. About 2.7% of children born to mothers who had Covid-19 while pregnant were diagnosed with autism, compared with about 1.1% of others, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The new findings are “particularly notable in light of their biological plausibility,” the researchers wrote. They build on previous research that identified potential pathways for a maternal Covid-19 infection to affect the developing fetal brain even without direct transmission.
