Researchers To Journalists: Stop Blaming Mothers
Being pregnant these days can be more stressful than ever, with growing lists of dos and don'ts. Don't eat sushi, don't drink alcohol. Exercise, sure, but not too much. Then there's our society-wide unease about the rise of developmental disorders.
If a pregnant woman were to search SFARI.org for stories about prenatal risk factors for autism, she would find no shortage of things she is supposed to avoid: the flu, antidepressants, sugar and even being too old. And if this torrent of risk factors fueled her anxiety, she'd have to worry about that, too.
There's nothing wrong with studies investigating links between prenatal events and autism or other developmental disorders. A lot of autism research focuses on mothers, and with good reason, given that the disorder takes root early in development. But as Sarah Richardson and her colleagues argue in a new commentary in Nature, journalists often cover this research irresponsibly.
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