Children born to women with intellectual disabilities - 5-year incidence in a Swedish county.
In Sweden, two of every thousand newborns have a mother with ID — a baseline you can cite when you ask for early-support money.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Brown et al. (2011) counted how many babies in Sweden are born to mothers with intellectual disability.
They looked at one county for five years, then used the rate to guess the whole-country number.
What they found
About two babies in every thousand each year have a mom with ID.
That means roughly four thousand Swedish kids aged 0-18 right now.
How this fits with other research
Greenlee et al. (2024) says we need more big-ID data sets like this one.
Hu et al. (2012) adds that in China low income raises the chance of ID in kids.
McQuaid et al. (2024) shows adults with ID face higher hospital risk, so early counts matter for lifelong care.
Why it matters
You now have a hard number to show funders why infant-tracking and parent-support programs are worth paying for. Use 2 per 1000 when you write grants or plan caseloads for early-intervention teams.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Families with parental intellectual disabilities (ID) are likely to need support in achieving a decent family life. In order to accurately plan for such support services, society needs data regarding the occurrence of those parents and their children. The aim of this study was to investigate the 5-year incidence of children born to women with ID in a county in Sweden. METHODS: Women born between 1975 and 1989 were identified from school registers for children and adolescents with ID in the county of Blekinge. The women's personal identification numbers were, in 2010, linked and matched with the Swedish Medical Birth Register. RESULTS: In total, 98 women with ID were identified. Nine of these had given birth to children; one woman to two children and eight women to one child each. The 10 children were born between 2004 and 2008. CONCLUSION: The incidence rate calculated as a result of the present study indicates that approximately 2.12 per 1000 children are born per year to women with ID. For the whole of Sweden that rate indicates an incidence of approximately 225 children each year. On the basis of this, the prevalence of children (aged 0-18 years) being born to women with ID is estimated at about 4050.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2011 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01441.x