WASHINGTON — Mothers of autistic children may ask: Could it have been prevented?
There are all kinds of theories surrounding this mysterious neurodevelopmental disorder. One of the latest comes from researchers at the University of California, Davis, who say iron deficiency in pregnancy may increase the risk.
They went through detailed data on 520 pairs of mothers and children with autism, and 346 pairs of mothers and typically developing children. The mothers with autistic children reported lower iron intake, especially in the months before and during early pregnancy.
Word of their findings hit one local doctor especially hard. Chitra Rajagopal is a hematologist in Rockville and the mother of a 21-year-old autistic son, Neil.
She was iron-deficient during her pregnancy — the result of a seven-month battle with nausea that reduced her to eating little more than white noodles.
When she heard of the California study, which was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, her heart broke.
“The first thought, obviously, was ‘I wonder if I could have prevented my son from having to struggle for the rest of his life,'” Rajagopal recalls.
While she knows it’s an early bit of research, she felt incredibly sad.
Rajagopal says the whole issue of autism is much more complex than just iron. In most cases, she notes, iron deficiency is preventable with simple supplementation.
Pregnant women need twice the normal level of iron, because their red cell volume increases significantly. Dr. Michelle Spector, chair of the OB-GYN department at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, says, “I think it is very important that patients take adequate iron.”
Spector says iron is a vital component in the development of a baby, and at the very least, this new research sends a strong message to women and their doctors about the need for vigilance.
It’s already known that iron-deficient mothers are more likely to have small or pre-term babies, and anemic infants can have delayed motor function. That is why doctors routinely check hemoglobin levels — a key indicator of anemia — at regular intervals, and urge pregnant women to take the necessary iron supplements.
Still, there are women whose iron levels drops much more than expected, and those patients often end up seeing a hematologist, such as Rajagopal.
She says concern about a possible association between iron and autism “made me resolve to the best for my ability for every single iron-deficient woman that comes across my path, I will make sure that they are iron
