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Meta-Analysis
. 2022 Apr;52(4):1640-1651.
doi: 10.1007/s10803-021-05063-z. Epub 2021 May 12.

Maternal Exposure to Pesticides and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Offspring: A Meta-analysis

Li Wang  1 , Shiming Tang  1 , Songjie Wu  2 , Lihua Yao  1 , Dezhen Su  1 , Ying Wang  3
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Maternal Exposure to Pesticides and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Offspring: A Meta-analysis

Li Wang et al. J Autism Dev Disord. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

This meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the overall association between maternal exposure to pesticides and risk of ASD in offspring. PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the PsycINFO were searched until December 30, 2020 to include eligible studies. Eight studies with 50,426 participants, 5810 of whom had ASD, were involved in the study. Overall, the summary OR (95% confidence interval) of ASDs in offspring for maternal exposure to pesticide estimated by residential proximity measures and self-report was 1.88 (1.10-3.20). However, maternal exposure to pesticide measured by biomarkers was not associated with an increased risk of ASDs (pooled OR 1.13; 95% CI 0.83-1.54). Further well-designed studies are needed to confirm our findings.

Keywords: Autism; Meta-analysis; Pesticides; Risk factor.

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