Pregnant women exposed to California wildfire smoke may see an elevated risk of autism in their children, a bombshell new study found.
The increased risk was strongest when mothers were exposed to the smoke during their last three months of pregnancy, according to research published in Environmental Science & Technology.
The risk could be worse for women who were exposed to smoky conditions for multiple days.
The study showed a 10 percent increase in autism for children whose mothers were exposed to smoke for 1-5 days and 23 percent for those exposed for more than 10 days.
The alarming research, which looked at hundreds of thousands of births in Southern California, revealed that tiny particles in wildfire smoke can get lodged in the lungs and enter the bloodstream.
Health records of over 200,000 births between 2006 and 2014 were analyzed. California leads the country in both wildfire scorched acres and rates of child autism, according to the study.
“Both autism and wildfires are on the rise, and this study is just the beginning of investigating links between the two,” senior study author Mostafijur Rahman told NBC News.
