Onset of maternal psychiatric disorders after the birth of a child with autism spectrum disorder: A retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Mothers of a child with autism spectrum disorder have more psychiatric disorders after the birth of their child. This might be because they have more psychiatric disorders before the birth, or the increase could be related to the burden of caring for their child.

AIMS: We aimed to calculate the incidence of a psychiatric diagnosis in women with no psychiatric history after the birth of their eldest child with autism spectrum disorder compared to women with no child with autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability and no psychiatric history.

METHODS: By linking datasets from Western Australian population-based registries, we calculated the incidence of a psychiatric disorder in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder and compared to mothers of children with no autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability. Negative binomial regression using STATA 13 was used for all analyses.

RESULTS: Apart from alcohol and substance abuse, mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder had higher incidences of all categories of psychiatric disorders than other mothers.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: The increase of psychiatric disorders in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder and no psychiatric history compared to similar mothers with no child with autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability might be due to a pre-existing genetic disposition coupled with an environmental trigger provided by the challenges of raising their children with autism spectrum disorder. In addition, the increased burden borne by the mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder might result in a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders in mothers who are not genetically disposed.