Low Birth Weight and Premature Birth Risk Factors for Autism?
So says the journal Pediatrics, which notes the risk seems higher for girls than boys. I’d be curious to know if they also attempted to sort the data by the age of the children’s parents and whether fertility drugs were used to achieve a pregnancy. Israeli researchers have noted in the past the that the age of both parents appears to be a factor in autism. Moreover, fertility babies are often of lower birth weight than babes conceived in a more, um, traditional manner. And I must confess that my own anecdotal observation is that many of the children I know with autism are with us because of the fertility industry.
About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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