Preterm Birth and Autism: No Genetic Differences Found, But Increased Support Needs Observed
A new study reveals that children born preterm who are later diagnosed with autism frequently enough require more extensive support and experience a higher number of co-occurring conditions compared to autistic children born at full term. Surprisingly,researchers found no differences in genetic variants across the genome,or in specific genes already linked to autism,between the two groups – a result that challenged their initial expectations.
The study was conducted at KIND (Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Karolinska Institutet) and published in October 2025 in the journal Genome Medicine.
“We did not observe any genetic differences between preterm and full-term autistic children, wich was unexpected. We initially thoght that preterm children might show fewer of the genetic factors associated with autism, as their early birth can be viewed as an environmental factor,” says Yali Zhang, doctoral student at Tammimies research group at KIND and first author of the study.
However, the study did demonstrate additive effects of genetics and prematurity. Furthermore, researchers identified an increased number of new genetic variants in the preterm group.
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