He noted that the numbers of women experiencing major stress during any certain four-week period in their pregnancies remained fairly constant during the study for normal and Down's syndrome pregnancies. Stress levels for the mothers of autistic children were nearly twice those of other mothers in the study.

"We expected that a woman who has had an autistic child or a child with Down's syndrome would tend to remember these life stressors more easily than a woman who has had a normal birth," he said.

"What we were looking for was this rise in the numbers of who had a major stressor during this time period (before 32 weeks) and that these women also had autistic children."

Beversdorf and his colleagues believe their research supports earlier animal studies that suggest stress during specific periods in the pregnancy may lead to structural changes in the brain that have been linked to autism.

The timing of the stressful events recorded for the study seem to mesh well, timewise, with the periods of development of the fetal cerebellum - a key portion of the brain that is structurally different in autistic children.

Autism is a neurological disorder that tends to appear early in a child's life, typically before age 3. These ch
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Contact: Jill Boatman
boatman-2@medctr.osu.edu
614-293-3737
Ohio State University
21-Nov-2001