Pandemic-era babies do not have higher autism risk, finds study. Children born during the pandemic, including those exposed to COVID in utero, were no more likely to screen positive for autism than unexposed or pre-pandemic children.

I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2823875

From the linked article:

Children born during the first year of the pandemic, including those exposed to COVID in utero, were no more likely to screen positive for autism than unexposed or pre-pandemic children, found researchers from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The study(link is external and opens in a new window), published in JAMA Network Open, is the first report on autism risk among pandemic-era children.

“Autism risk is known to increase with virtually any kind of insult to mom during pregnancy, including infection and stress,” says Dani Dumitriu, associate professor of pediatrics and psychiatry and senior author of the study. “The scale of the COVID pandemic had pediatricians, researchers, and developmental scientists worried that we would see an uptick in autism rates. But reassuringly, we didn’t find any indication of such an increase in our study.”

Surprisingly, the study also found that fewer children exposed to COVID in utero screened positive for autism compared with children whose moms did not have COVID.

“We suspect that having COVID during pregnancy may have influenced parents’ assessment of their child’s behaviors,” Dumitriu says. “Parents who did not have COVID may have experienced higher stress—due to the constant worry of getting sick and the vigilance around preventing infection—and may have been more likely to report concerning child behaviors.”

Makes sense considering the miniscule risk of vaccine harm causing autism to present in the first place, and presentation is more likely caused by vaccine interval schedule than a single vaccine.