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Autism is Not Caused by Terbutaline

John P Elliott and John C Morrison

Objective: To identify the rate of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children exposed to terbutaline in utero compared to patients untreated with this beta agonist.

Methods: Members of three lay organizations collected data regarding significant childhood development problems following their pregnancy using a web-based survey.

Results: Over a 90 day period, 11,717 surveys were sent electronically to members of the high risk pregnancy organizations. Of these, 2217 members (18.9%) responded and results showed that 965(43.5%) had received terbutaline during their pregnancies. Overall 523(23.6%) reported having at least one child with some form of chronic disability and of these 128 had a child with ASD. Of fetuses with no exposure to terabutaline 79/1252 (6.3%) had a diagnosis of ASD compared to 49/965 (5.1%) who reported a history of terbutaline exposure (p=0.233). In contrast, prematurity was strongly associated with ASD as 102/128 (80%) were delivered at <36 weeks compared to 26/128 of those with ASD (20%) delivering at >36 weeks.

ASD was not associated with terabutaline exposure in pregnancy; however ASD was associated with preterm delivery.