Prenatal maternal stress events and phenotypic outcomes in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Kids with ASD whose moms lived through two-plus major stressful events while pregnant show weaker social and communication skills, but targeted ABA social drills can still help.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 113 moms of kids with ASD to list any big stressful events during pregnancy.
Events like job loss, divorce, or death of a close relative were counted.
Each child’s autism symptoms and language skills were then scored with standard tests.
What they found
Children whose moms reported two or more major stress events had lower social and communication scores.
The more events, the weaker the child’s language and social skills.
Stress did not change IQ, only the autism-specific social-communication domain.
How this fits with other research
Lyall et al. (2011) looked earlier in the timeline and found that moms who got their period before age 10 or had high teen BMI also raised ASD risk.
Together the studies show both pre-pregnancy body factors and pregnancy stress can shape later autism traits.
Sivberg (2002) and Whaling et al. (2025) show family stress continues after diagnosis, so stress-reduction may help at every stage.
Bassett-Gunter et al. (2017) gives us a ready tool: their six-step eye-contact protocol improved social skills in preschoolers, meaning we can still act even when prenatal risks are present.
Why it matters
You can’t rewind pregnancy, but you can screen for family stress now and teach coping skills.
Pair that with social-skills interventions like the eye-contact package from Bassett-Gunter et al. (2017) to chip away at communication deficits.
Also share these findings with pediatricians and OB teams so they flag high-stress pregnancies for early ASD monitoring.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
UNLABELLED: There is significant heterogeneity amongst individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in symptom presentation and severity. An understanding of the factors that contribute to and modulate symptom severity are critical to informing prognosis, stratification, and treatment decisions. Maternal prenatal stress exposure is a nonspecific risk factor for a wide array of neurodevelopmental outcomes in subsequent offspring. Emerging evidence suggests that prenatal maternal stress may increase ASD risk and contribute to variability in autism-like traits in the general population. In the current study, we aimed to determine whether prenatal maternal exposure to stressful life events is associated with symptom severity amongst individuals with ASD. We performed multiple regression analyses to examine associations between retrospectively recalled maternal prenatal stressful life events and the severity of ASD-associated symptoms in 174 children with ASD (Mage = 9.09 years; SD = 3.81). ASD-related symptom severity was measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale and communication abilities were measured using the Children's Communication Checklist. Exposure to prenatal stressful life events was a significant predictor of ASD-related symptom severity (t = 2.014; P = .048) and communication abilities (t = -2.925; P = .004) amongst children with ASD, even after controlling for a range of sociodemographic and obstetric variables. Follow-up analyses demonstrated significant increases in symptom severity only in the context of multiple (two or more) prenatal stressful life events. Together, these findings indicate that ASD, in the context of prenatal maternal stress exposure, may be associated with a more severe phenotype, particularly when there are multiple prenatal exposures. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1866-1877. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: There is emerging evidence that prenatal maternal stress may increase the risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and contribute to variability in autism-like traits in the general population. Here, we found that more stressful life events experienced during pregnancy was associated with more severe ASD-related symptoms and poorer communication abilities amongst children with ASD. The results from this study suggest that prenatal maternal stress exposure and its sequelae may contribute to variability in symptom severity amongst children with ASD.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1830