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Health & wellness

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Study: Autism risk higher in children of obese mothers

By Karen Weintraub

 |  Globe Correspondent  

  April 09, 2012

Obesity may be harming our children’s brains. A new study in the journal Pediatrics shows that mothers who had gestational diabetes or who were overweight enough to affect their metabolism, were more likely to have kids with autism and other developmental delays. Obese mothers were 67 percent more likely than healthy, normal-weight mothers to have a child diagnosed on the autism spectrum, and more than twice as likely to have a child with a developmental delay, the study found.

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