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Young Parental Age May Double Child ADHD Risk
Children born to younger parents have an increased risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a large, population-based study suggests.
In an analysis of data from more than 50,000 individuals in Finland, the researchers found that having one parent younger than 20 years increased the risk for childhood ADHD by approximately 50%. Children born to families in which both parents were younger than 20 years had almost twice the risk for ADHD.
“Health professionals who work with young parents should be aware of the increased risk of ADHD in offspring,” investigators, led by Roshan Chudal, MBBS, MPH, Research Center for Child Psychiatry, Institute of Clinical Medicine and the University of Turku, Finland, write.
“This would improve early detection and treatment, but for the development of preventive measures and appropriate interventions, more information on the developmental pathways is needed,” they add.
Previous studies have demonstrated a link between older paternal age and an increased risk for schizophrenia in offspring. The risk for other conditions, such as autism and bipolar disorder, is also increased with older parental age. However, preliminary studies in ADHD showed the opposite association.
To investigate, the researchers conducted a nested case-control study using data from the Finnish Prenatal Study of ADHD. From several nationwide databases, they identified 10,409 individuals with ADHD born between 1991 and 2005; for the control group, they identified 39,125 persons who were matched for sex, date of birth, and place of birth.
The team took into account a number of factors, including parental psychiatric history, maternal socioeconomic status, marital status, maternal smoking during pregnancy, number of previous births, and birth weight for gestational age.
Compared with a reference parental age of 26 to 29 years, fathers younger than 20 years had a significantly increased risk of having offspring with ADHD, at an odds ratio (OR) of 1.55. For mothers younger than 20 years, the OR was 1.41.
Interestingly, increasing maternal age beyond 26 to 29 years was associated with a decrease in ADHD risk among offspring, at an OR of 0.79 among mothers aged ≥40 years.
The children of young parents are also exposed to a large number of socioeconomic risk factors.
“I think it’s a mix of both,” he said. “It’s both the inherited genetic risk and, among those who are susceptible, additional environmental factors. That’s what we believe triggers the development of ADHD.”
Studies have shown that children with disruptive behavior problems are also at increased risk of committing crimes and have an increased risk of dying early.
“Being younger shouldn’t really be considered the only issue. It’s about providing an environment which is suboptimal for children and having an increased risk of ADHD.
“This is a population-based study. It doesn’t show any mechanism. It doesn’t have an ability to understand what is causing the association,” Dr Nomura added.
“This study opens up a basis of discussion, and after the association has been replicated in a population study, we will be more certain that younger age is a risk factor for ADHD.”
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. Published online March 26, 2015. Abstract
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