now it's the mom's age . . . sigh

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s Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Kennedy KriegerInstitute, Baltimore landAbstract TitleEFFECTS OF MATERNAL AND PATERNAL AGE IN SINGLETON BIRTHS WITH AUTISMSPECTRUM DISORDERS (ASD)List of AuthorsB. J. Priestley, L. Lee, A. W. ZimmermanEnter abstract here-DON'T include authors or titleBackground: Previous research studies have suggested that bothadvanced maternal and paternal age increase the risk of ASD in children.Objectives: To examine the combined and independent effects ofmaternal age and paternal age in ASD.Methods: The case group consisted of 513 ASD singletons born from1983-2002. All cases were evaluated at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.The matched control group was randomly selected from singleton birthsin the State of land during 1983-2002. Cases and controls werematched to the childs gender and birth year using a frequency matchof 5:1 controls to cases. Maternal age and paternal age at the indexchilds birth were categorized as: <25, 25-29, 30-34, >=35 formaternal age; and <30, 30-34, 35-39, >=40 for paternal age.Results: Using maternal age <25 and paternal age <30 as the reference,the odds ratios (OR) for maternal age >=35 group ranged from 6.45 to7.26 (all p<0.0001) across 4 paternal age levels; and the OR formaternal age 30-34 group ranged from 4.90-5.40 (all p<0.0001) across 4paternal age levels.Conclusion: Advanced maternal age significantly increases the risk ofhaving a singleton child with ASD, regardless of paternal age.Paternal age does not independently predict ASD. Because maternal ageand paternal age are highly correlated, the effect is mostly frommaternal age but not paternal age itself. Further analyses will beperformed to confirm if these observed patterns also occur in familieswith ASD multiple births and in different ASD subtypes. Results ofthese further analyses will be presented See what's free at AOL.com.