Maternal age and infantile autism.

Gillberg (1980) looked at 20 children with autism. The team wrote down each mother’s age when her baby was born.

They compared these ages to the average mom in the general population.

Mothers of the autistic children were about five years older. The average age was 30.7 years versus 26 in the general group.

Risk went up as mom’s age went up.

Links (1980) saw the same thing the same year. That group of 45 kids also had older moms.

Whitely et al. (2022) flips the story. In baby brothers and sisters who already have an autistic sibling, younger dads, not older moms, showed higher autism odds. The families in that study were high-risk, so the rule changes.

Tioleco et al. (2021) pooled 36 studies on prenatal risks. Maternal age sits inside that big picture even though infection was the main focus.

Older moms are still common in your caseload. Use the age clue when you review developmental history, but do not treat it as a cause. Pair it with other red flags like preterm birth or mid-pregnancy fever. When you work with families who already have one autistic child, shift focus to the infant sibling and watch for early signs no matter what the parents’ ages are.