The results of a Danish study released on Health Day, October 11th, show that jaundice in neonates may lead to increase in risk of autism in later stages. Other experts say that this is a very preliminary study and further studies have to be conducted before the cause and effect relationship can be clarified.
The study was done using information from all the children born in Denmark spanning 10 years between 1994 and 2004. The gathered data showed that neonatal jaundice increased the chance of developing autism and other psychological disorder by almost 67%.
Jaundice is a very common condition occurring among the newly born when the liver is not mature enough to breakdown the waste product, bilirubin, and excrete it. When the bilirubin collects in the blood without getting excreted, it gives the skin and the sclera of the eyes a yellowish tinge.
Autism alludes to a huge spectrum of communicative and behavioral disorders ranging in symptoms and severity. Autism spectrum disorders are assumed to have both genetic and environmental factors contributing to it. Dr. Gary Goldstein, a professor of pediatrics and neurology at Johns Hopkins University and president and CEO of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, feels that the neurotoxin, bilirubin is capable of damaging the speech, hearing and language pathways of the brain. If the child has a genetic predisposition to autism, the increased bilirubin might act as triggering factor. This is the only explanation the researchers can find to explain why jaundice might increase the chances of autism.
The study has its limitations since the researchers do not have the exact measure of the bilirubin in the infant’s blood. They used only a questionnaire from the parent to deduce that the child had autism. Therefore, they have nothing to pinpoint that higher the bilirubin levels in the blood, higher the chances of autism. They also do not have anything to say about whether treatment of jaundice had any role to play in reducing the chances of developing autism.