Prenatal maternal stress and the severity of autism spectrum disorder: A cross-sectional study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder linked to several genetic and environmental factors including antenatal stress. Hence, we aimed to examine whether a mother's stress during pregnancy is associated with the severity of autism spectrum disorder in children. The study was conducted with 459 mothers of children with autism (aged 2-14 years) who were attending rehabilitation and educational centers in the two major cities of Makkah and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Environmental factors, consanguinity, and ASD family history were assessed using a validated questionnaire. The Prenatal Life Events Scale questionnaire was used to assess whether the mothers were exposed to stress during pregnancy. Two models of ordinal regression analysis were conducted including gender, child age maternal age, parental age, maternal education, parental education, income nicotine exposure, mother taking medication during pregnancy, family history of ASD, gestation, consanguinity, exposure of prenatal life events (in model 1), and severity of prenatal life events (in model 2). Family history of ASD showed a statistically significant association with the severity of ASD in both regression models (p = .015, odds ratio [OR]: 4.261 in Model 1, and p = .014, OR: 4.901 in model 2). In model 2, the moderate severity prenatal life events showed higher statistically significant adjusted odds ratio for ASD severity compared to no stress (p = .031; OR: 3.82). Within the limitations of this study, prenatal stressors showed some potential contribution to ASD severity. Family history of ASD was the only factor that showed a persistent association with ASD severity. A study that assesses the effect of COVID-19 stress on ASD prevalence and severity is recommended.