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Birth seasonality and risk of autism spectrum disorder
- Source :
- Lee, B K, Gross, R, Francis, R W, Karlsson, H, Schendel, D E, Sourander, A, Reichenberg, A, Parner, E T, Hornig, M, Yaniv, A, Leonard, H & Sandin, S 2019, ' Birth seasonality and risk of autism spectrum disorder ', European Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 34, no. 8, pp. 785-792 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-019-00506-5, European Journal of Epidemiology
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Season of birth has been hypothesized to be a risk factor for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the evidence has been mixed and limited due to methodological challenges. We examine ASD birth trends for 5,464,628 births across 5 countries. ASD birth prevalence data were obtained from the International Collaboration for Autism Registry Epidemiology database, including children born in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Western Australia. Empirical mode decomposition and cosinor modeling were used to assess seasonality. We show seasonal variation in ASD births for the countries of Finland and Sweden. There was a modest increase in risk for children born in the fall and a modest decrease in risk for children born in the spring. Solar radiation levels around conception and the postnatal period were inversely correlated with seasonal trends in ASD risk. In the first multinational study of birth seasonality of ASD, there was evidence supporting the presence of seasonal trends in Finland and Sweden. The observations that risk was highest for fall births (i.e., conceived in the winter) and lowest for spring births (i.e., conceived in the summer), and sunlight levels during critical neurodevelopmental periods explained much of the seasonal trends, are consistent with the hypothesis that a seasonally fluctuating risk factor may influence risk of ASD. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10654-019-00506-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Season of birth
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Epidemiology
Denmark
Autism
030204 cardiovascular system & hematology
behavioral disciplines and activities
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Pregnancy
mental disorders
Prevalence
medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Risk factor
Child
Empirical mode decomposition
Finland
Sweden
Norway
business.industry
Psychiatric Epidemiology
Public health
Infant, Newborn
Parturition
Western Australia
Seasonality
medicine.disease
Autism spectrum disorder
Fertilization
Female
Seasons
business
Demography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15737284 and 03932990
- Volume :
- 34
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- European Journal of Epidemiology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d069392fdbe4b4427382a070d7524b80