According to a recent study, children may be more likely to be diagnosed with autism and other neurodevelopment disorders if their mother had a Covid-19 infection while pregnant. The findings were published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology on October 30, 2025.
To conduct this study, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed more than 18,000 births that occurred within their health system between March 2020 and May 2021. They assessed records for laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 tests among the mothers and for neurodevelopment diagnoses among their children through age 3.
They found that children of mothers who had COVID-19 during pregnancy were 29% more likely to be diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder compared to those born to mothers who did not have an infection while pregnant. Specifically, over 16% of children in the exposed group received a diagnosis compared to less than 10% in the unexposed group.
Meanwhile, the increased risk was more pronounced among boys and in cases where the mother had a COVID-19 infection during the third trimester of pregnancy. The researchers suggested that the increased risk may be due to maternal immune activation (MIA) and associated inflammation or placental issues, rather than direct viral transmission to the fetal brain, although the exact mechanisms require further study.
According to the study, the most common diagnoses included autism spectrum disorder, speech delays, and motor function disorders. Based on the data collected from the study, about 2.7% of children born to mothers who had Covid-19 while pregnant were diagnosed with autism, compared with about 1.1% of others.
The study’s specific timeframe – which was before early in the pandemic and before vaccines were widely available – allowed researchers to study the direct effects of the SARS-CoV-2 infection itself on fetal neurodevelopment, with about 93% of the mothers in the assessment being unvaccinated.
In a statement made by Dr. Andrea Edlow, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Mass General Brigham and senior author of the new study, these findings highlight that COVID-19, like many other infections in pregnancy, may pose risks not only to the mother, but to fetal brain development.”
