Elective Deliveries and the Risk of Autism

Between Dysbiosis, Maternal Immune Activation and Autism: Is There a Common Pathway?

“…They ascertained that both—elective and emergency CS are associated with a higher risk of ASD in comparison to vaginal delivery [ 59 ]. Those findings were confirmed by more recent studies [ 60 , 61 ].…”

Trends in Elective Deliveries in California and New Jersey

“…Following recent studies that investigated the impacts of elective deliveries on neonatal and child outcomes, 6 , 8 we created low-risk samples for each state using Joint Commission (JC) guidelines for the perinatal core outcomes of decreasing the rate of elective deliveries and decreasing the cesarean delivery rate in nulliparous women with a term, singleton baby in a vertex position. From all births, we excluded those who had any of the ICD-9 codes on the JC lists for Conditions Possibly Justifying Elective Delivery Prior to 39 Weeks Gestation or Contraindications to Vaginal Delivery in the maternal delivery discharge record ( Appendix Table 1 , available online).…”

“… 3 , 4 When medically necessary, C-sections can save lives; for example, increased rates of preterm C-sections in the U.S. between 1990 and 2004 were associated with perinatal survival, mostly because of decreases in stillbirths. 5 When not medically necessary, C-sections increase health risks to newborns 6 and children 7 , 8 and pose surgical risks to mothers. Induced vaginal deliveries do not appear to be associated with such risks, but inductions of labor are often followed by C-section deliveries.…”

“…Induced vaginal deliveries do not appear to be associated with such risks, but inductions of labor are often followed by C-section deliveries. 6 , 8 …”

Oxytocin - A key to aetiology and treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder

“… 6 It is important to pay attention to the influence of maternal factors in the development of children and mothers themselves, since not only children but also their mothers have been reported to show low levels of plasma OXT which were negatively associated with the autistic symptoms of children. 7 The mothers of children with ASD were also reported to have a higher rate of cesarean section 8 and a lower rate of lactation, 9 which may influence the mother-infant bonding and lead to the potential risk for development of OXT system through epigenetic modification. Therefore, the interaction of genetics and environment with OXT will be the next hotspot for aetiology, molecular diagnosis and precision therapy of ASD.…”