A study from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found that children of obese women with diabetes have four times the risk of autism than offspring of normal-weight women without diabetes. The findings were published in Pediatrics. Dr. Wang and her colleagues analyzed a total of 2,734 mothers and their children who gave birth at Boston Medical Center from 1998-2014. Data collected included the mother’s pre-pregnancy weight and prevalence of diabetes (including gestational diabetes), the child’s follow-up study records from pregnancy to postpartum, and the medical records of the delivery. During follow-up, the researchers identified 102 children with autism. Children born to mothers with obesity and pre-pregnancy diabetes were four times more likely to have an autism spectrum disorder than children born to women of normal weight and without diabetes. The study highlights the risk of autism while the fetus is in the womb. As to why obesity and diabetes increase the risk of future autism in the fetus, researchers believe it may be because obesity and diabetes lead to increased maternal stress and inflammatory responses in the body that affect the neurological development of the fetal brain.