Extremely premature babies show higher autism risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children born extremely preterm may face a much higher-than-average risk of developing autism later in childhood, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of 219 children born before the 26th week of pregnancy, 8 percent met the criteria for an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at age 11. That compared with none of 153 classmates who were born full-term and included in a comparison group.

The ASD rate was far higher than that in the general population, which experts estimate to be somewhere between one and nine cases per 1,000 children, depending on how strictly the disorders are defined.

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