Autism and Maternal Age
If it were just autism or not, then 0.15% vs 0.3%, who cares, have a baby - 99%+ likely to turn out great.
But I imagine it’s only one of many things that go wrong more often with increasing age (with paternal age, you seem to merely get more random mutations, which on the whole are thousand-tiny-cuts detrimental to IQ,health,height,etc. - but the woman provides genes *plus* environment).
From 1990 to 1999, the risk of having a child with autism was:
- 1.6 per 1,000 women under age 25
- 2.3 per 1,000 women aged 25-29
- 3.1 per 1,000 women aged 30-34
- 3.85 per 1,000 women aged 35-39
- 4.4 per 1,000 women aged 40 and older
(it would be funny if there’s just a decrease in permanent damage from some environmental factor (leaded gas/paint, DDT?) - then younger mothers would look better just for these past few decades, as they missed early-life exposure, and future 40 year olds have nothing to worry about - but I’m pretty sure this is just older=worse as is often the rule in everything but knowledge+experience+capital)